Centre Wellington District High School had a trifecta of success at the recent Skills Canada National Competition in Moncton.
Grade 9 student Jade Ritter won a silver medal in the workplace safety category, while Grade 12 students Dillon Bernier (job search) and Zach Ternan (computer information technology and networking support) placed fourth in their categories.
This was each student’s first time attending the Ontario Technological Skills Competition and the Skills Canada national competition. They each earned their spot on the Ontario team by winning gold at the provincial competition held at Rim Park in Waterloo from May 2 to 4.
“I was just put into provincials with no experience of what to expect ever,” Bernier said. “It was a good experience but it was a little nerve-racking because you have the best in Ontario at provincials who probably have done their own regional completion and might have been there last year and then you have me, this new person on the block, never experienced any of this before. So I enjoyed the experience for sure and it’s going to prepare me for job interviewing for the future.”
The students had about a month to prepare for the national competition, which took place in Moncton, New Brunswick from June 5 to 8.
There were more than 500 students from across the country at Skills Canada participating in over 40 skilled trade and technology competitions.
“I was very proud, obviously, of them,” said Jenny Ritter, who coached Bernier and her daughter Jade. The teacher went to nationals last year with a student for the school’s first ever Skills Canada appearance, but this is the first time a Centre Wellington District High School student won a medal.
“It’s a lot of prep for going, but it’s so worthwhile,” Jenny said. “They just learn so much and they made some really good friends.”
Each of the categories competed over a two-day period in Moncton.
Jade’s competition gave her 45 minutes to evaluate a mock workplace for 12 hidden hazards, explain the dangers and how to control the situations.
She was also required to do a presentation on hazards and injuries found in the food service industry. The third component was to visit four different competition sites. Jade chose welding, baking, hairstyling and carpentry. She then identified potential hazards and controls and explained how the controls worked.
“I knew that I had always wanted to compete in Skills Canada for a while and so I kind of investigated some of the competitions that it had to offer, but I felt that workplace safety was what I would be most suited to,” Jade said.
“I’m accident-prone but I always have had a reputation as a safety freak so I thought that this might be something that I was interested in and would do well at.”
Because Jade is in Grade 9 she has three years to win that gold medal. She noted, “the judges encouraged me to come back … So I figured that I’d just try it again and see.”
However, Jade doesn’t think she’ll go into the health and safety field after completing high school.
“But I’m confident that I could take just this experience … and just apply it to whatever I choose to do because workplace safety is so important in every single workplace.”
Jenny said she was very surprised Jade won gold at provincials.
“Just because she’s in Grade 9,” said Jenny. “We kind of went with the whole preface that she had really wanted to do this and so she’s very driven and so she worked very, very hard to prepare and the whole point was that ‘we’ll go and you have until Grade 12 to medal’ …
“So I was pretty amazed.”
Ternan and Bernier chose categories that were a little more applicable for their future aspirations. Ternan works at a computer store and likes working with technology so to pursue the IT and networking support category was a natural fit. At provincials and nationals he excelled.
“They gave you a set of tasks to perform and … there’d be a time limit,” he said. “Based on the amount of tasks you did correctly that was your score.”
Ternan chose the category because he saw the future job value.
“There’s a lot of money in … any industry that uses computers and the issue is that nobody knows how to make them do what they want them to do,” he said. “So if I can be the guy [to do that] then I think I can be included in that large amount of money and I’m fairly reasonable at it.”
After Ternan won the provincial competition, the Upper Grand District High School hired him to work for the board IT department over the summer.
Ternan’s coach, Tim King, said it has taken his department about two years to figure out how the provincial competition worked.
“Thanks to those guys kind of going down in flames, Zach walked into it feeling really confident and able to just focus on what he needed to do for it,” King said. “Now nationals, we’ve never been before, so the same thing’s happened, now Zach’s the sort of sacrifice.”
King said Ternan came back to the school to help future students be more prepared and have confidence.
For Bernier the job search category put him in a better position for future job hunts and interviews.
Throughout the national competition he had to create two new cover letters and resumes for two fictional characters and research entry-level jobs. He also had to apply nine essential skills identified in the applications, identifying six as strengths and three as weaknesses. The next day he prepared for his own interview.
“They kind of try and rattle you a little bit so you have to be like really focused and you can’t let them get under your skin or if they get you rattled it’s end game,” Bernier said, adding his friends are now asking for help with cover letters and resumes.
Jenny expected Bernier to do well.
“With Dillon I wasn’t super amazed because I knew he was going nail it,” Jenny said.
