78 grade five students have been testing out various vocations this week at Steinbach Regional Secondary School. Spokesperson Darcey Steiner, who works in the Co-op Education Department at the school, says it's a new camp program they introduced this year.

"It's called the 5-5-5 Summer Camp. It's five days, five careers, fifth graders. Each day the student is participating in a different vocation or career and learning about the trade, the attributes and skills needed and getting to do a little project in that trade that they can take home at the end of the day."

Steiner says campers, who come from across the Hanover School Division, get to choose from eight different trades when they sign up including welding, collision repair, hairstyling, culinary arts, carpentry, baking decoration, electrical and fashion illustration and textiles. She adds it's a chance for kids to find out what they like and to become familiar with the school.

"A lot of them might be coming to the SRSS in Grade 9 so, in three years, they can walk around and feel more comfortable. It could help them decide which major they would like to do when they come here and, even if the students are not coming here, it, at least, has given them experiences in four different vocations." (The fifth vocation, as indicated in the 5-5-5 title, involves a day exploring jobs of old at Mennonite Heritage Village, such as blacksmithing.)

Kyle Von Riesen mentors campers in hairdressing.Kyle Von Riesen teaches hairstyling at SRSS. He has only ever taught high school students but is finding it a joy to mentor these grade fives because they have such open minds.

"They don't know what they don't know and so they're excited and they want to learn and they want to do stuff. That's been the biggest change; they just want to have fun and they don't really care if they don't do it perfectly the first time. So it's been a really great experience."

Furthermore, Von Riesen says the camp gives children a real insight into what careers they may want to pursue. He gives an example.

"They kind of know that hairstyling is working with hair but they don't really know what it looks like in terms of a career. So getting them exposed to it in Grade 5 kind of gets them ready for high school and gets them ready for the future as to what the possibilities are. It gets them thinking about that as they mature and grow up."

Steiner says the idea for the program came from Hanover Assistant Superintendent Chris Gudziunas.

"He had seen something similar to this in the United States, that they do in Roanoke, Virginia. He had seen it at a conference and so we just asked any of our vocational teachers if they'd be willing to try this and we got a great response to it."

 

 

 

 

 

Fashion and textiles class.

Culinary arts class.

Carpentry class.