Certification and Skills Training Day took place on Wednesday at Widdifield Secondary School.
Certification and Skills Training Day, aka CAST Day, benefits the students in that it increases their employability for the future.
“They get that certification, they put that on their resume, and it makes them more employable,” said Melody Cazabon, who is a teacher at Widdifield Secondary School and the head of the CAST Day Committee.
“We gear a lot of our courses towards their education but also their employability skills, and this just furthers that.”
Some of the workshops offered include learning American sign language, Smart Serve, Sewing, Bike Repair, Navigating and GPS, Athletic taping, Indigenous Dance, and even chainsaw repair and maintenance.
“I think it’s a good chance to learn something that’s going to help you later on,” says Cameron Smith, a grade 11 student who took part in the ‘cooking on a budget’ workshop.
“It can be geared more towards your profession, but I just wanted to learn something more general, for basic life, so I thought I’d just do this cooking one.”
CAST Day is an opportunity for students to obtain life skill experiences to better know what they want to do after they leave high school; but the learning doesn’t stop there, as said by Mrs. O’Kane, the Principal at Widdifield.
“The students end up learning a lot more about themselves, they learn about teamwork, and it pushes them outside of their comfort zone a little bit; and that’s always a good thing,” said O’Kane.
“Sometimes learning doesn’t just occur in the boundaries of the classroom. We have to learn different skills, different things we can do, different character traits, and sometimes we do that outside of the classroom boundaries. And certification day is that.”
