A.E. Bowers Elementary School is a beautiful place to live, learn, and grow.
I am immensely proud of this school - and of the community it has fostered for the past thirty-two years. Yes, our school has a history that spans more than three decades and is intricately tied to the core community of Airdrie.
Our personal stories bond us together…
For the past twenty-three years, I have found myself likewise intricately tied to this same community. When I first moved to Airdrie to settle down, teach, and raise my own family, I taught at Muriel Clayton Middle School - the feeder school for A.E. Bowers Elementary School. My Auntie Donna Miller was the librarian/learning commons facilitator of R.J. Hawkey Elementary School since its opening in the 1980's and inspired my family's decision to move to this community. More than twenty years later, I have lost count of the number of children whose parents I had the privilege of teaching years before - families who chose to stay in our community and raise their own families in this beautiful part of the world.
What an honour it is to be here.
We live by the motto, "Safe. Kind. Responsible."
Our motto is the foundation of citizenship at A.E. Bowers. We are building citizens of tomorrow and this is our cornerstone - for our children, for our families, for our community, and for our team. Be safe & be kind. It is only when we have a culture that is safe and kind that we are able to live, learn, and grow. To that end, we know that "kids do well if they can" (Dr. Ross Greene) and our student code of conduct is created with that purpose in mind.
We foster a culture of high expectations…
We have high expectations for ourselves as members of the school and for the children we serve. We are literate. We are numerate. We are linguistically enriched. We are data-driven. We are on a journey that challenges us every day to use informed practices founded in solid research that helps guide our way forward. We are Rocky View Schools. Our jurisdictional team supports us and helps us forge our way forward in all that we do - from the Literacy and Numeracy Framework to the Inclusive Education Framework and everything in between.
We are linguistically enriched…
When I first arrived at A.E. Bowers Elementary School in 2016, it was to support the successful infusion of a French Immersion program in our school. Our school built a "dual track" school together - offering programming in both English and French Immersion. We no longer see ourselves as "dual track"… we are proud to share that we are one community and one inclusive school environment that honours the learning journey and the learning path of every child. We began our journey with approximately 1/3 of the school's population in French Immersion. Today, our French Immersion program hosts over 2/3 of the school's population!
What do we know to be true?
- Language education is for everyone! All children can succeed in French Immersion.
- Languages open the world to opportunities for the future of our children - in careers and in life.
- Languages build better brains!
- Language is intrinsically tied to culture. We appreciate and honour our minority languages as we appreciate and honour our cultural diversity!
I am so very honoured to serve here at A.E. Bowers Elementary School and support our children, our team, and our community on this meaningful and important journey forward.
Yours truly,
Jocelyn Littlefair
Principal | Directrice