Rick Menanno, aviation manufacturing teacher at St. Edmund Campion Secondary School, shows a airplane frame to Tom Condotta, a Grade 8 teacher at St. Aidan School and Mariella Valdez, a Grade 12 student at Campion. Watching is Nick Bruzzese, an aviation consultant at the school. – Photo by Bryon Johnson
A new aviation course is taking flight at Brampton’s St. Edmund Campion Secondary School.
The course, which will teach aircraft manufacturing, will be available to students in Grade 10 and be introduced at the school in second semester, according to Principal Neville Mant.
Mant said he is hoping the course will become a Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) and benefit from the region’s vibrant aviation industry. A SHSM program allows students to customize their high school subject selections to build on their strengths and talents and focus courses towards their interests.
These ministry-approved specialized programs allow students to gear learning towards a specific economic sector, like manufacturing, construction or business, while meeting graduation requirements. It can also help students transition to apprenticeship training, college, university or the workplace after graduation.
Campion already offers high skills majors in areas such as hospitality, the non-profit sector, sports education and arts and culture, Mant noted.
“What I’m trying to do is serve the students at all spectrums,” he said.
The new course and others were recently showcased during a visit by hundreds of Grade 8 students from local elementary schools. To help introduce the aviation course to students who may be attending the high school next year, the framing of a Fisher 101 Ultralight aircraft was on display in the foyer.
The kit for building the single-seat aircraft was donated.
Students in the course will be building the plane as they learn about manufacturing and flight dynamics.
“The goal is to manufacture the plane and get it to taxi,” said Guidance Counsellor Danney Hamilton. “Students will feel a real sense of real world success.”
Students will be making the plane airworthy as part of the course curriculum.
Source: https://www.bramptonguardian.com/community-story/3095965-high-school-aviation-course-takes-off/