New summer school classes aim to reignite learning after pandemic disruptions

Just a few days into Gibson-Neill Memorial School's inaugural summer math camp, New Brunswick teacher Katie King was already hearing loud and clear how much students — and their parents — are appreciating the new initiative. 

The Fredericton elementary school introduced the new program this past week: over five condensed school days, King and her colleagues mixed math lessons in indoor and outdoor classroom spaces with healthy doses of physical activity.

"What we've been most surprised about is the enthusiasm with our children. They run and skip into the building every morning," King said. "[Kids] are going to camps of all sorts this summer and so this is just a different type of camp for them."

In jurisdictions across Canada, summer learning programs are in high demand, with a fresh wave of new school-based initiatives popping up this year. Educators and parents alike are hoping these new offerings give students a boost, provide extra time for catching up and revive appetites for learning again, after more than two years of pandemic-disrupted classes.

Math camp isn't like regular school, said Julia Raynes-Willar, one of the students enrolled at Gibson-Neill. "We're still at school, but it's different... We play a lot at games club and we learn, but we mostly learn more than we do at normal school."

One parent, Heidi Giles, sent a glowing email to teachers midweek, noting how her daughter Phoenix had predicted the camp would turn out to be her favourite of the summer. "She loves math camp. She is so sad that there are only two days left," Giles wrote.

The math lessons themselves aren't new, King said, but in addition to bringing learning outside more often, the program has a student-to-teacher ratio of five-to-one versus the more typical 21-to-one during the year. 

Also, she said teachers started the week getting the kids "invested in their own learning" by gauging their interests and asking what they felt they needed to work on most.

Experiencing pandemic disruptions and changes during the past few school years have made it difficult to build and maintain momentum for learning, according to King, who said summer programs can be a real opportunity to help address learning gaps.

"We could continue this for the next few years, at least, to sort of catch up the learning that has been lost."

School divisions across the country have reported seeing more interest in their summer learning offerings, from the Burnaby School District in B.C. touting record single-day registrations back in April, to Ontario school boards from Sudbury through the Niagara Region noting more students signing up for virtual and in-person summer school and co-op opportunities.

New Brunswick Education Minister Dominic Cardy also noted a huge appetite for extra learning last month when unveiling a wide range of new summer programs.

This fresh demand and enthusiasm for summer learning programs doesn't surprise Janice Aurini, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo who has done extensive research into summer setback — student learning loss during summer breaks.

"Across the country, our children have been out of school — flipping back and forth between remote learning and in-person schooling — and it's been a tremendous disruption to children's learning. Parents are seeing it, so I'm not surprised by the demand at all," she said in an interview from Burlington, Ont.