This open day differs from the last because this year, I chose not to help guide prospective families around. The reasoning is quite simple; I was already presenting two things to families later on in the day and wanted to prepare for that. The two things I would be talking about were Eco Schools (something I am well versed in) and it’s role within our community, and a student testimony something I have never done before. I think the reason for the later is because as a teachers kid, I would inherently have some bias to the school. However, I was still asked to talk about why I think OSC would be a good school for prospective families.

The presentation for Eco Schools is one I have done over and over again; during assemblies, books and cookies, board meetings and more making it a breeze to go through the slides. I am well versed in what our community does for the environment both within school and outside of campus so I broke it down to be more digestible for parents. I talked about:

1. What we are
2. How we became an Eco-School
3. Our Eco-Club meetings
4. Our achievements
5. Other Eco-Club service groups
6. And gave testimonies on how Eco-Schools has benefited me

I wasn’t presenting this alone, I had my legacy leader Millan help to present the slides with me and give his own testimony. On the day itself, I saw the leader of a new service group (Young Reporters for the Environment) Senaka in the stands and asked him to present with us since I am not yet well versed in his service and their involvement with the community.

The student testimonies proved to be challenging for me. At home I was trying to come up with things to say and how to say them but ended up stuttering over my sentences which didn’t present a lot of confidence in my words. After talking to Dr Kleiss, who helped reinstate my confidence, I felt like I had the perfect way to bring my point across in one that felt natural to me; a story. Here is a summary of what I mentioned:

The only way I feel like I can truly encapsulate what it is like to be a student at OSC is through a story. I was in maths, I know you’re already falling asleep but bear with me. Now maths is by no means my strongest suit, I need a lot of help and support in it. I didn’t understand what was happening on the board and asked about it. At this point I already felt bad like I’m asking to go back to things that were just explained I’m slowing my class down, but my teacher never made me feel bad about it. Instead they said “no problem, let me explain in a different way”, “maybe this puts it in simpler terms.” Instead of making me feel bad for not understanding something, they assumed that they hadn’t explained it clear enough and went over it again with me. Now at this point I was feeling really guilty, and thought “oh no my classmates must hate me” “they’re probably annoyed at me now” but no. They helped me. They were like “Eloise here is how I worked it out,” “here this is another way you can do it.” Pep even showed me here Eloise, if you use this function on your calculator you can do it a lot faster. It was truly a moment of cooperation with everyone teaching each other. The teacher didn’t mind either and was bouncing off the ideas of the students adding onto their notions. It was a moment of community and I think is a moment that truly encapsulates what it is like to be a part of the OSC community.

The words came naturally to me, which was something I wanted to achieve. Sure I could go on about all the opportunities school granted (which everyone who gave a testimony ended up talking about) but storytelling is something I am good at. I believe it to be one of the best ways to talk to someone naturally, and not over complicate it. It was a challenging experience but one I am happy to have achieved.

Featured Image Credit: Melinda Tondeur