With deep gratitude and respect, we are honoured to be learning and unlearning on the ancestral and unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) & səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation).

Lord Roberts Elementary School is situated in part of the downtown core of the Vancouver known as the West End. With 650 students at the school, it is one of the largest Elementary schools in Vancouver. There is great diversity within the student population: 5% (32) of the students are Indigenous, and 31% (204) students are English Language Learners boasting at least 41 different languages spoken at home. The students represent about 40 countries, and of these students, a significant number were born in Ukraine, Russia, and Iran. Many other students come from various countries in the Middle East and Asia. We have a high number of families who receive school support. There are 95 (15%) students on the hot lunch program and about 40 families have accessed the Student and Family Affordability Funds last year on a regular basis- for support with groceries, clothing and to pay for field trips. More than 43% of our students receive resource support and 50 students (8%) are designated as having special needs.

Teachers at Lord Roberts enrich their outdoor education curriculum by taking advantage of our location. We are well-placed for neighbourhood walks to Stanley Park, Lost Lagoon, English Bay, and Second Beach. Students take walking field trips to the Joe Fortes Public Library, the ice rink at the West End Community Centre and Robson Square, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the theatres at Granville Island and performances at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and Canada Place.

Staff at Lord Roberts school are keen to support the students by committing their time to run extracurricular activities. We often have had basketball, volleyball, badminton and track and field teams. In 2022-2023, we started a Pride Club that was well attended by students, some of whom volunteered to represent the Pride Club at Funfest; students raised the Pride flag at school for our Diversity week in May. We had two student bands that performed in assemblies and at our Funfest. Several Intermediate classes performed their ukulele songs at Funfest. For the first time in years, we had an overnight Grade 7 camp.

The Helping Hands Club enhanced the Social Responsibility Competency profile of students in Grades 4-7, in the 2022-2023 school year, by providing them with opportunities to take on leadership roles in the school to foster a safe, caring, inclusive, and welcoming school community such as:

• Morning Announcement Monitors – reinforcement of school Code of Conduct to be proactive with student behaviours.

• Assembly leaders who lead assemblies.

• Organized initiatives based on students’ voiced needs, including supervision the multi-purpose room for students so they have a place to go during lunch, started the Chess and Drama Clubs, and arranged volleyball games in the Gym for Gr. 6 and 7 students every Wednesday.

In the 2023-2024 school year, the Helping Hands Club has been renamed to the Student Leaders Club. It will continue the work of morning announcements, leading assemblies, and initiatives based on student needs and creating a sense of belonging and community such as spirit days, hallway monitors, and lunch time games.

Our Parent Advisory Committee (PAC) is very active and supportive of the school. They initiated a request, which was also supported by staff, to rename Lord Roberts, a process which is now underway. They have a well- organized calendar of fundraising activities which supports programming in our school. The highlight of the fundraising calendar is the Funfest which is held on the first Saturday in June. This is a wonderful community event attended by thousands of people. As a result, PAC has subsidized the Boogaloo dance workshops, field trips, Grade 7 activities, paid for a new commercial dishwasher for our LunchLAB program and given funds to support families experiencing challenging circumstances. PAC has been supportive of initiatives in the school such as Bike to School Week, Pride Club, purchased 30 keyboards for our music program, Stream of Dreams, Basketball Court Renewal, planting trees on the school grounds, and organizing the refuse area to clear a pathway for cyclists.

Parents have given thousands of volunteer hours from year to year. In addition to helping with field trips and driving to sports events, twice a week, parent volunteers support our LunchLAB program. Every month, dozens of parents help to deliver thousands of slices of pizza for pizza lunch.

Roberts offers a unique program for our students to learn through our garden. Roberts boasts one of the largest gardens at an elementary public school in BC. The goal of our Edible Education program ignites our curricular and core competencies within each grade by using the Big Idea of food literacy: "Food literacy is having the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to choose, grow, harvest, prepare and enjoy food to support one's health, community and the environment. as well as other curriculum areas." (Healthy Schools BC - https://healthyschoolsbc.ca/key-focus-areas/food-literacy).

Run in conjunction with the Edible Education curriculum, LunchLAB is a unique program which benefits 200 Roberts students and families on a weekly basis. LunchLAB operates with the support of outside partners, Growing Chefs and Fresh Roots, and has chefs-in-residence to support curriculum alignment and integration. All this work is very much in line with the VSB Food Framework’s vision that “every student has access to nourishing food at school; they develop the skills they need to choose, eat, grow, prepare, and share food through VSB School Food programs.” This is a flagship program, with guests from school districts from across BC visiting to see how it operates along with provincial politicians and city councillors. LunchLAB and our Edible Education curriculum were featured in a CBC documentary about food education.

After school, our Community Schools Team members coordinate programs and activities which both enhance our students' learning experiences and provide students with many outside school activities such as yoga, theatre, sport-ball, and coding. Beyond our dynamic staff at Roberts, the area counsellor, Youth and Family Worker, Indigenous Education Enhancement Worker, Multicultural Workers and Settlement Workers all play an integral role in helping Roberts' students transition and succeed in their learning and growth. In the past, the Russian and Farsi speaking Settlement Workers have hosted coffee mornings each Thursday to provide support and connections for our families who are new to Canada. Onsite during each school break, we have the KidSafe and YMCA programming, and in the summer, we also host the Rec and Read program for Grade 1 students.

Community connections are important to us here at Lord Roberts. At our Welcome to Kindergarten event, we usually invite the Vancouver Coastal Health, Public Health Nurse, the children’s Librarian from the Joe Fortes public library, before and after school programmers from the West End Community Centre, Coal Harbour Community Centre, Gordon Neighbourhood House, and the YMCA. We work closely with these partners and staff from King George High School throughout the year to coordinate out-of-school and lunchtime programming for our students.