Welcome to Sam Pudlat School!
Our school is located in Cape Dorset, Nunavut, a community of just over 1,300 people found on the southern tip of Baffin Island. Our school has about 227 students from kindergarten to grade six and a teaching and support staff of about 30.
Sam Pudlat School is a welcoming, enthusiastic and happy place to work and learn. Our children love coming to school and we have one of the highest attendance rates in Nunavut. This could not have happened without the care and energy of our wonderful teachers! On any day you will find them sharing ideas about instructional practices, helpful resources and school events. This is simply a great school and we are proud to be part of the staff and proud of our students.
If you are a new hire, our staff, students and the District Education Authority (DEA) would like to welcome you. If you are a parent, job seeker, or a casual visitor to our profile, we hope you find here the information that you need.
At Sam Pudlat School, we focus on the development of the whole child: their academic, emotional, social and physical well-being. We look to current research to support our interventions in these areas and we constantly assess the effectiveness of our strategies.
We recognize our children have needs that are unique to Nunavut and we strive to help them and meet these needs.
Our students are enthusiastic, energetic and eager to learn. We have about 227 students and, for most, Inuktitut is their first language while English is their second language.
Our extracurricular activities tend to change a bit every year. However some activities we have offered include:
We have an amazing collective of enthusiastic and talented teachers and student support assistants who help make our school great. About half of these are long-time residents of Cape Dorset who speak both English and Inuktitut. The other half is English speakers from southern Canada, who do their best to pick up all the Inuktitut they can! We love to share, learn, collaborate and team-teach with our colleagues.
Here are some positions that you may find at our school:
Cape Dorset is very much an Inuktitut-speaking community. Our kindergarten students therefore receive instruction in Inuktitut only, but we begin to introduce English on a daily basis in grade one. These short daily interventions in English oral language and reading continue through to grade four. Guided reading, guided writing and word work are also all evident in our English language arts classes.
We have scheduled school-wide assessment of all students in reading, mathematics and English language vocabulary. Select students receive one-on-one reading instruction daily, while others have small group intervention in reading.
The school has a comprehensive and school-wide focus on the whole student, meaning their social, emotional, physical and intellectual development. We support the RULER program for children's social and emotional development, a research-supported program developed at Yale University.
Here is a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) from teachers (in general) that you may want to discuss further with your principal or colleagues, some of this information may be readily available on this website, while for...
Check with your principal or vice-principal to find out if an orientation will be organized for new and returning staff.
The Department of Education and the Nunavut Teachers' Association are currently developing a formal mentor program. The program will be available to new teachers at a later date.
If you are interested in a mentorship, please check with your principal to see if informal mentoring is a possibility.