4C Challenge Information Night: January 15th, 2025 at 7:00pm at Mount Douglas High School

The Greater Victoria School District Challenge Program at Esquimalt High School serves the unique needs of gifted, creative, and talented learners. Students who see the world in unique ways and love deep and creative learning are grouped together in cohort-style classes. The aim is to deliver an enriched curriculum with teaching strategies that are suited to their intellectual, social, and emotional needs and abilities.

4C Challenge classes maximize the opportunities to enrich student’s learning and support their self-directed studies, autonomous learning, and social and emotional well-being. The 4C Challenge Program develops students’ cognitive abilities through differentiated curriculum, acceleration, and enrichment, enabling them to achieve their full learning potential.

The program is centered on what we refer to as the four “Cs”:

• commitment to tasks;
• creative problem solving;
• challenging curriculum and assignments and;
• community involvement

More information is available in the documents below and by contacting Omdrea Walker, the 4C Challenge Program Coordinator or Chris Koutougos, one of Esquimalt High School’s vice-principals and the 4C Challenge Program administrative contact.

Email: ckoutougos@sd61.bc.ca

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Teacher Profiles
Dana Bjornson
Mrs. Bjornson was a Grade 8 Challenge student at Esquimalt High School in 1985 on the unceded territory of the Lekwungen Peoples. Studies at the University of British Columbia, Royal Roads Military College, and the University of Victoria led her to a degree in Physics and Mathematics and her teaching certification. In 2018, Mrs. Bjornson completed her Master of Educational Technology degree through UBC. With twenty years of teaching experience behind her, this degree has shifted her practice immensely. Blending “tried and true” traditional pedagogy with technology-enhanced activities provide her students opportunities to personalize their learning while learning mathematics and physics. Mrs. Bjornson also teaches Esquimalt’s Scholarship 12 and Peer Tutoring 10 - 12. She encourages all students to dive deeply into opportunities that go beyond the walls of their timetabled classes. It is through these experiences that one’s future life course can be revealed!
Tim Bullard
Mr. Bullard grew up in Victoria, attended the Challenge Program at Cedar Hill Junior Secondary and graduated with a Bachelor of Science and M.Sc. in paleontology from the University of Alberta. Rather than pursue a career as a professional paleontologist Mr. Bullard returned home to enroll in the University of Victoria’s Diploma in Secondary Teacher Education. He has been a teacher in Victoria ever since. Mr. Bullard’s interest in the extraordinary complexity and beauty of organisms, both living and extinct, is his motivation for teaching, and he tries to pass on some of this fascination to his students.
Jamie Burren
Jamie has been a teacher in the Victoria School District since 2013. He found his way to Esquimalt in the fall of 2017 and knew that he had has found his home. Jamie has recently completed his Master’s Thesis in Curriculum and Instruction examining the potential of using video games to English Language Arts. Jamie’s pedagogy involves finding authentic ways for students to explore their interests in passions in direct conjunction with their learning. Jamie has taught in the Flexible Studies program at Reynolds Secondary, and at The University of Victoria, and is drawn to working with students in alternative educational spaces.
Cheryl Nigh
Cheryl Nigh grew up in Windsor, Ontario. When Cheryl finished high school, she had wanted to become a science illustrator linking her two passions: art and biology, but she was not comfortable with the new movement to graphic arts software. She obtained a Bachelor and Master of Forestry degrees specializing in wood engineering at the University of Toronto. Her master’s thesis explored the rheological properties of wood under mechanical stress and the role of water movement within that wood. She also earned a Bachelor of Education from U of T. If she could have afforded it, Cheryl would have been a professional student! Within School District 61, after a few years of bouncing between schools, Cheryl taught grade 8 at Gordon Head Middle School for nine years. She transferred to Esquimalt High School in 2015 and has now found her forever classroom. Cheryl is passionate about blending creative, elaborate hands-on research into her junior science classes. For the past few years Cheryl’s students have been doing lab trials to accelerate the regrowth of forests from cuttings. Cheryl is currently transitioning her junior science projects to investigate rehabilitating declining aquatic ponds.
Omdrea Walker
Omdrea Walker was born in Ontario and moved to British Columbia in 1990. Passions and interests include: film, sports, books, theatre, video games, camping, philosophy, psychology, painting & drawing, writing novels and spending time in nature. After giving up her dream of becoming an actor and spending two years working toward a degree in Psychology, Omdrea took the advice of her high school Art teacher and decided to return to the classroom and teach the subjects that she loves: English, Art and Drama. Omdrea has been a teacher in the district since 1997, at Esquimalt High School since 2012. She is a fierce advocate for social justice as well as a strong supporter of inclusion and differentiated instruction. She completed her Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instruction; creating a curriculum for use in Literature Studies based on Archetypes and the Hero’s Journey as it reveals itself in life, literature, psychology and society. Ms. Walker is passionate about teaching in the Challenge Program as she believes that it provides a place for gifted, talented and creative learners to thrive within a cohort and course stream that supports their unique learning styles.