Durham students from Pickering to Oshawa showcase talents at Skills Ontario competition

Durham high school students showed off their talents at the recent Skills Ontario competition, taking home 20 medals, including seven gold.

Canada’s largest skilled trades and technologies contest boasted more than 2,300 competitors from Grade 4 to apprenticeship-level, showcasing their skills in contests such as robotics, IT, horticulture and landscape, coding, culinary arts, graphic design, and home and team building, with some competition processes lasting a full eight hours.

The competitions give exposure to the possibilities of different career paths that are available to students that they might not have been aware of. It also allows for them to take pride in skill sets that they have. Competing in the skill set competitions provides students with the opportunity to win medals, scholarships, bursaries, job offers and prizes.

Zoe Head took home gold in Hairstyling at Skills Ontario

Skills Ontario took place in a remote, virtual format once again from April 19-29, with the Durham District School Board entering 64 students competing from both the elementary and secondary levels across 28 competition categories.

Gold medal winners won in the job skill demonstration, restaurant service and IT software applications categories. Silver medalists won in electronics, 2D character animation and workplace safety categories, and bronze medalists won in the graphic design studio production category.

Pickering High’s Zain Parihar was a gold medal winner at Skills Ontario in electronics and added a silver at the national competition

Student Success Program Facilitator Jennifer Parrington believes the teacher-to-student mentorship is the most important part of the Skills Ontario experience. “They really bond with that teacher/mentor, and the teacher/mentor gets that next level of fulfillment in their teaching career,” she said. “When you take the time to hone a student’s skills, look at what they do. They flourish.”