Interests. Passions. Talent… Electives at Calais are an opportunity for Calais students to explore an area of interest or discover completely new areas they may not have considered before. At The Calais School, elective courses enrich our students’ learning experiences, giving them exposure to varied concepts and new experiences. In part one of this three-part blog series, we will explore some of the most popular elective courses in greater depth and detail.

The electives offered to Calais students span a wide and varied range. Elective options for upper school students include: Baking, Band, Calais News Production, Drawing, Fashion Design, Multimedia Design, Music Technology, Pixar-in-a-Box, Robotics. Lower school students are offered courses in Art, Computers, Music and STEM and the addition of Multimedia for 8th graders.

One particular elective generating a lot of buzz is The Calais News Production elective. Taught by Ms. Burke, this elective class is home to the popular student-run newscast, Cougars on the Clock. Structured like a professional production studio, students collectively brainstorm and work together to create, produce and broadcast weekly episodes for the rest of the school to enjoy.

In class, students gain hands-on experience in front of and behind the camera using professional MAC based software and equipment for video/podcast production and editing. They share ideas and storyboards with each other using write-on walls and work with media production technology like iMac computers, iPads, professional lighting, audio equipment and green screen backdrops.

A typical “Cougars on the Clock” episode follows a specific format covering school-wide events/activities, holidays, student interviews, current events — even an occasional tasteful joke is thrown in — all wrapped up with playful animations, digital backdrops and sound tracks.

Students build confidence as they bring informative, fun communications to their schoolmates. They pride themselves in being part of a production team and take away many work readiness skills such as public speaking, team-building, and deadline management. They also learn how to accept and handle feedback. 

In part two, we will delve into Fashion Design, an elective course that has even created space for collaboration between upper school students and lower school Art elective students.