When David, a Grade 7 Middle School student, heard the invitation for students and staff to find an alternative means of transportation for a week in June, he expressed his determination to walk to school. This decision doesn’t seem too much out of the ordinary until you learn how far David actually intended to walk: 20 km from his home in Central Saanich to GNS! “No one really believed me,” he recalls, “but I proved them wrong,” he says excitedly. Indeed, David woke up at 3:30 a.m. in order to walk the 3.5 to 4 hours to GNS in order to participate in the school challenge. Along Cordova Bay Road, down Blenkinsop, across to Richmond, all the way to Bank Street, just in time for classes.

Alongside the fear of snakes and spiders, public speaking often tops lists of common phobias. While Elspeth Easton hasn’t quite come to terms with those slimy, slithery reptiles, she made a decision early in her academic career at GNS: fear of public speaking was not going to slow her down!

More than teaching Kate about research, analysis, and responsiveness, the Grade 5 IB PYP Exhibition led Kate to a greater appreciation of her life in Victoria. A former orphan at Roteang Orphanage in Cambodia, Kate chose her line of inquiry -- “Rights and responsibilities affect children’s abilities to learn” -- in order to understand more about the life she was so fortunate to escape.

Excitement shines in the eyes of Grade 4 students Niranj and Chloe as they recount receiving autographed soccer balls from GNS’s Senior Boys and Girls teams.