Students’ well-being comes first for teachers at Cardinal Leger
Updated: Apr 3, 2025
As elementary students return to in-person classes, teachers are modifying their delivery of instruction to accommodate students’ emotional needs as well as their learning needs.
When students were suddenly thrust into online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of them found it hard to cope with the isolation. Teachers struggled to keep their classes engaged as there were few opportunities for students to socialize and collaborate with their peers, to feel any real connection to the material being taught.
“Students felt that they could hide behind their cameras, they weren’t vocalizing their answers and it was very hard for them to participate…I think students just lost the will to do school and put effort into things,” said Maria Calligaro, an 8th grade teacher at Cardinal Leger Catholic School.
It was clear that a different approach had to be taken and so many teachers began making their lessons more interactive, using resources like videos and shared documents where students could actively contribute rather than sit in silence with textbook readings.
When schools gradually started re-opening though, teachers once again had to adjust their lesson plans while also trying to deal with the new challenges that were presented by students returning to in-person.
“They were very quiet, much more reserved. It took many of them a very long time to get to know each other,” said Shantelle Fernandes, a 3rd and 4th grade teacher.
The teachers understood that they could not proceed with in-person lessons as they had done prior to COVID-19 because students still needed to heal from the isolating effects of the pandemic.
“I have been giving fewer tests just because I equate testing with a lot of stress and I know students are dealing with a lot of mental health issues coming back,” said Calligaro in a later statement.
Not wanting to put any additional pressure on the students, the teachers strayed away from previous methods of instruction and found alternatives that offered students more creative freedom while still being reflective of their learning capabilities.
For example, Ms. Calligaro now does a lot of choice boards with her students. She gives them the opportunity to showcase what they have learned from her in the form of podcasts or other mediums that they are more comfortable with.
“Active participation provides opportunities for more authentic learning observations; engaging them on a daily basis versus giving them accumulative/summative assessments is more meaningful to me and to them,” said Fernandes.
According to Peter Fitzpatrick, principal of Cardinal Leger, in addition to applied learning approaches, the school also offers a number of resources for students' mental health including a “Safe Schools” committee.
The committee promotes mindfulness and meditation in every class and they have even created “Mental Health Mondays” where teachers talk over the P.A about the importance of alleviating stress and give students different examples of how they can do that. “The students are our program and we adjust to meet their needs,” Fitzpatrick later stated.
Overall, the teaching staff emphasize that while student success is no doubt important, the well-being of their students is the number one priority. “Of course I want the kids to be prepared for high school, of course I want them to learn, but I want them to feel good first and foremost because I don’t think that they can do their academics properly unless their headspace is a good one,” said Ms. Calligaro in a final statement.
Like many schools across the GTA, the team at Cardinal Leger hope to see students feeling good about being at school again and are willing to provide them with the necessary tools to help them get to that point.
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