Special Olympic athletes from Wellington Heights Secondary School, along with their peer helpers, won a variety of medals in Bocce Ball and Track and Field events at the Special Olympics Provincial School Championships held May 26-28 at the University of Western Ontario in London. The athletes were coached by WHSS teachers, Ms. Chambers, Ms. Heffernan, and Mr. Teeter.
In order to qualify for the Provincial Championships in Track and Field, WHSS ran their own trials in the fall in running and throwing events for students from LRC-10 classes and peer helpers to record their distances and times and then submitted these results to Special Olympics. The Special Olympics organization selected a 4-member unified team to attend based on their scores, making the WHSS team one of 30 teams that qualified. Representing Wellington Heights in Track and Field were J. Davidson - paired with peer helper H. Rundle, and K. Fraser - paired with peer helper F. Wilde.
At the Provincial Championships, Davidson and Rundle won a Gold Medal in the shot put and Silver Medals in both the standing long jump and the 200m race. Fraser and Wilde won a Gold Medal in standing long jump, a Silver Medal in shotput, a Bronze medal in the 200m race, and finished 4th place in the100m race. All four Track and Field athletes finished the day as a team with a 4 x 100m relay where they won another Gold Medal in their category.
In order to qualify for the Provincial Championships in Bocce Ball, a qualifier tournament was held at the Royal Distributing Athletic Performance Centre this past February. One of our unified teams qualified from our geographic area, meaning that WHSS was 1 of 12 unified teams competing in London from across the province of Ontario. Representing Wellington Heights in Bocce Ball were A. LaCombe, S. Copland, M. McDermott, W. Smaglinski, N. Duxbury, and peer helper N. Schlosser.
At the Provincial Championships on Day 1, the WHSS Bocce Ball team had 2 wins and 1 tie, which put them into the top category of the competition. On Day 2, the WHSS team went undefeated in the round robin play, had an overtime win in the semi-finals, and then played a hard-fought championship final game where they walked away with the Silver Medal.
Additionally, this year Ms. Heffernan and Ms. Chambers decided to put forward Wellington Heights to become a Unified Champion School as they felt the school met the qualifying criteria. A Unified Champion School program is one that fosters sustainable, inclusive school environments by promoting social inclusion through intentionally designed activities that drive system-wide change. The organization has 3 foundational pillars and schools must complete many components which allow schools to reach different levels of achievement.
Recently, WHSS staff received notice from the governing organization, recognizing Wellington Heights' outstanding commitment to inclusion through the Unified Champion Schools (UCS) program. The UCS initiative fosters sustainable, school-wide inclusion by bringing together students with and without intellectual disabilities through sport, youth leadership, and whole-school engagement. These pillars work together to build meaningful relationships, strengthen school culture, and ensure all students feel welcomed and actively included in every aspect of school life. Wellington Heights Secondary School was recognized for 2025-2026 as a Silver-level Unified Champion School, reflecting its continued leadership and positive impact across the UCS pillars.
Principal Mr. Bloch stated, "This recognition is an incredible honour for our school and a tribute to the diligent efforts of our school staff to promote inclusion, and to seek out new and exciting opportunities for our students to learn and grow as athletes and as people." He added, "I am very proud of the dedicated work of Ms. Chambers, Ms. Heffernan, Mr. Teeter, our LRC-10 teachers and Educational Assistants who all go above and beyond to continually design new experiential programming for our students in order to engage them in their learning and to prepare them for life beyond high school. I am also very proud of our students who eagerly accept the challenges put before them by their teachers and continually strive to reach their goals."
