After a decade of teaching Indigenous language and culture, Saskatoon's Confederation Park Community School is finding a spirit of unity among it student population.

It brings them a whole sense of identity and pride. - Pete Chief

The program is open to any student in the city who wants to learn the Cree language and be exposed to all sorts of Indigenous cultural activities.

"A lot of our people don't speak the language," said language teacher Pete Chief in an interview with CBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning.

Confederation Park Community School is the winner of this year's Nominate your School contest and hosted a special on-site edition of Saskatoon Morning on Friday.

Chief explained that the school uses pictures to help the students learn Cree.

The program at Confederation Park Community School is open to any student in the city who wants to learn the Cree language and be exposed to all sorts of Indigenous cultural activities. (Victoria Dinh/CBC)

"Just by looking at the visuals they can figure it out," he said. "They are speaking the language; whenever they come up to do the exercise, they are actually speaking the language."

"It brings them a whole sense of identity and pride."

Students learning to walk as one

Beyond language, the program — which is a partnership between Saskatoon Public Schools, the Saskatoon Tribal Council and the Central Urban Métis Federation — also exposes students to drumming, feasts, smudges and powwows. They also learn traditional stories and protocols from Elders.

A program which teaches Indigenous language and culture at Saskatoon's Confederation Park Community School has helped build unity and pride among the larger school population. (Victoria Dinh/CBC)

But there is also a role for non-Indigenous students. They can learn too through a pilot program open to everyone in the later grades at the school.

This is important to Chief, who says it builds unity and pride among the larger school population. He suggests the school is a living example of what the future might look like, capturing his great-great grandfather's vision from the time of the Treaties.

"He believed by signing these agreements that we were going to walk one day with our non-Indigenous brothers and sisters."