Education plan built around students in ‘Beyond Walls’

By Tim Kalinowski on July 26, 2017.

tkalinowski@medicinehatnews.com @MHNTimKal

The Prairie Rose School Division’s Beyond Walls Outreach School does education a little differently than most, says principal Tim Bloomfield. Unlike traditional brick and mortar schools which expect students to fit into their education plan, Beyond Walls builds an education plan around its students.

“We are a storefront outreach school where kids come in and out,” said Bloomfield. “We are a distance learning high school with approximately 200 kids where some of them are already attending a high school in Medicine Hat or Eagle Butte, and attend our programs part time, some of them are full time with us, and the others work through high school courses via distance learning.”

Beyond Walls serves the needs of a variety of different students, some of whom are high achievers wanting to push themselves to advance faster, some of whom struggle in traditional classrooms, and others whom require a more flexible type of education plan which works better with their needs and interests, says Bloomfield.

“They don’t have to attend class every day, they don’t even have to come in. We can basically fit around any schedule they want. If the kid is working full time and needs to do a bit of upgrading, that works. We have adults who take classes with a full-time job and kids at home, and they need some high school courses. They come to us and we help them out. We get all ends of the spectrum here.”

Besides core curriculum courses, Beyond Walls also offers specialized programming like high school credited first aid programs, advanced music classes, sports coaching classes, college certificate courses and even driving courses where students can activate their interests and move forward with their post-high school career plans.

“We say yes to everything instead of no. We challenge our people here to make it work because a lot of these kids have been said no to before in traditional schools … we find a way to say yes and make it work for them,” says Bloomfield.

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