Recipient Bios (wz00812)

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Year: 2001 – Province: Alberta

Certificate of Achievement Recipients

Dean Hawkins

School: Sunnyside School
101-3305 18 Avenue North
Lethbridge, Alberta  T1H 5S1

Principal: John Bolton
School Telephone: 403-327-9214
School Fax: 403-327-5588
School website: www.pallisersd.ab.ca/sites/sunny
Grades/Subjects Taught: Grade 3 math, language arts, physical education, health and spelling; also principal of school

Teaching approach:

  • Connect personally with each and every student and his or her family.
  • I want the students to see how proud I am of their accomplishments. That's why I teach; to see a student become successful.
  • Every day we teach children to be passionate about their schoolwork and their attitudes. We as teachers should be their role models.

Outstanding achievements:

Brings a spirit of excitement and enthusiasm to classroom teaching, emphasizes hard work and good effort. Mr. Hawkins capitalizes on his strengths and shares teaching tasks with other teachers whose interest and expertise are higher than his own in some subjects.

Student achievement is outstanding: in recent school year, all grade 3 students met the Acceptable standard, with 53 percent reaching Excellent on provincial tests (44.4 percent in writing and 50 percent in reading, 55.6 percent in math knowledge and 61.1 percent in skills).

As principal, introduced a number of new activities at school to raise morale, and teach citizenship, responsibility and excitement of learning.

  • Ever-Active School campaign: in morning exercise program set to student-selected music, students lead their peers in Tai Bo, yoga, calisthenics and aerobics.
  • Intramural program of sports chosen by students brings out 97 percent of students.
  • Student-organized 30- to 60-minute assemblies: Mr. Hawkins gradually withdraws his assistance so that by the end of the year the students are running them independently.
  • Sunshine Award was created to acknowledge and foster positive behaviour and qualities, and acknowledges the best example of the Quality of the Month.
  • Grade 5 and 6 mentors set example for younger students, model school code of conduct.

Rave reviews:

He is real to the students. He expects the best from them and he is successful because they see him giving his best. He leads by example. Parent council representative

I give a big thank-you to Mr. Hawkins for helping me see that being the fastest runner or having the best kick in soccer isn't more important than feeling the best at heart! Student