Refuge for the people
by Jackie McKay CBC News Mar. 2, 2025
Students sit on a red circle carpet and repeat the names for actions, objects and animals that one student points to on the board.
Unless you speak SENĆOŦEN (sen-CHO-th-en), like these children do, it may be hard to follow along.
'If we ask to go to the bathroom, we ask in SENĆOŦEN, if we ask to go get water, we ask in SENĆOŦEN,' said Gloria Hopkins.
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She's an 11-year-old Grade 6 student in the SENĆOŦEN immersion language stream of the ȽÁU, WELṈEW̱ (SAY-wul-nukh) Tribal School, in Brentwood Bay, B.C., about 17 kilometres north of Victoria.
Of the 200 students at the Tribal School (preschool to Grade 6) and W̱SÁNEĆ (wh-SAY-nuch) Leadership Secondary School (Grade 7 to 12), about 88 students take their classes fully in SENĆOŦEN — the language spoken by the four W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations — Tsartlip, Tsawout, Tseycum and Pauquachin.
'I think it's just important to learn your own language,' said Hopkins.
'There's not many elders that are here to speak and teach us, so I'm grateful that we get to learn in our school.'
Her class is learning about climate change and the California wildfires, all in SENĆOŦEN.
Hopkins's teacher had to translate all the materials to be able to teach the class about the fires, something many of the staff are familiar with doing.
'We spend a lot of time creating our resources,' said SX̱EŦILEMTENOT (swe-th-heel-uhm-too-nawt), who teaches Grade 1 immersion.
'We can't just use anything, everything has to be in SENĆOŦEN.'
She said they try not to bring English materials into the classroom.
'It's just that time spent in the language and that time spent trying to evoke that SENĆOŦEN out of the students so that they're responding and thinking and feeling, daydreaming or dreaming SENĆOŦEN is the is the goal,' said SX̱EŦILEMTENOT.
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The percentage of Indigenous people in Canada who can speak an Indigenous language has steadily been declining, according to the 2021 census. In 2021, 13.1 per cent of Indigenous people reported being able to speak well enough to conduct a conversation, down from 15 per cent in 2016, 17 per cent in 2011 and 21.4 per cent in 2006.
According to the 2021 census there were 180,085 First Nations people living in B.C., of whom 14,595 could speak an Indigenous language well enough to conduct a conversation, down 7.1 per cent from 2016.
More than half (58 per cent) of First Nations people in B.C. who speak an Indigenous language learned it later in life as a second language. This is the highest share of second language learners nationally, according to the 2021 census.
'Ideally at the end of this, it's going to create speakers that are speaking in the home and the community and then revitalizing it in all the places outside of the school,' said SX̱EŦILEMTENOT.
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Students return as teachers
She was a student here from preschool to Grade 1, before switching to the public school system. In 2015 she enrolled in the University of Victoria Language Revitalization Program at W̱SÁNEĆ College — which is located on the school grounds.
SX̱EŦILEMTENOT wasn't planning on becoming a teacher but felt a responsibility to the language and to ensuring that students in the immersion program were able to do their schooling in SENĆOŦEN all the way to Grade 12.
'It's the most beautiful thing. It's the most rewarding, energizing job,' said SX̱EŦILEMTENOT.
Many of the staff and teachers were once students here, including the current principal of the school.
SI,OLTENOT (see-elle-too-not) went to preschool here the year it opened in 1988.
At that time, the school was in English but every day there was SENĆOŦEN class. She also would speak at home with her grandfather Norman Williams — the former chief of Pauquachin First Nation and a former member of the W̱SÁNEĆ school board.
W̱SÁNEĆ school board was created in response to the provincial government taking over First Nations education in the late 1960s, according to articles from the Victoria Times Colonist in 1970.
'Amazing dream of a school'
Children from the four W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations attended the Tsartlip Indian Day School, which opened on Oct. 1, 1931, according to the Indian Day School settlement website.
The chiefs from the four W̱SÁNEĆ communities made up the school board, and the board still operates this way today.
W̱SÁNEĆ leaders were against the integration of their children into the provincial public school system, and wanted culturally-relevant education within community at least at the elementary school level since it was important for cultural survival and educational success, according to the Victoria Times Colonist in 1970.
W̱SÁNEĆ school board took over control of the Tsartlip Indian Day School in the 1970s. In September 2024 the last remaining building of the day school was removed.
ȽÁU, WELṈEW̱ means refuge for the people; it's the name of a sacred mountain where W̱SÁNEĆ people escaped the great flood.
'They worked on this amazing dream of a school where they hired all of our own W̱SÁNEĆ men and women to work on the school and build the school,' said SI,OLTENOT.
When SI,OLTENOT was 14, one of her teachers told her that 'it's strong SENĆOŦEN speaking students like you that need to come back and teach the language.'
'I just kind of held that with me and held that in my heart,' said SI,OLTENOT.
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SI,OLTENOT came back to the school to work as a teacher apprentice and did the University of Victoria teacher education program though the W̱SÁNEĆ College.
The school still relies on that program for its immersion program, she says.
'We do lean a lot on our educational assistants that have the language to step in if our teachers are away so that they can help lead the class with their language,' said SI,OLTENOT.
Teachers here spend their summers translating materials to fit the B.C. curriculum, said SI,OLTENOT.
All the students at the elementary and high school are First Nations, mostly from the four W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations. But SI,OLTENOT said the school also has students from Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.
'I believe that me, having been nurtured and attending our school and having that strong self-identity of who I am, allowed me to find a love for education, a love for learning,' said SI,OLTENOT.
'That's our goal is we want to encompass creating a safe and welcoming environment for our kids to feel welcomed and loved and be comfortable to have the opportunity to learn and love learning.'
In June 2026, the school will see its first Grade 12 class graduate. About a dozen students who started in the immersion preschool will get their 'dogwood diploma' — the B.C. certificate for completing provincial graduation requirements.
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