The London Chapter

The London Chapter (1335) has been active in the Thames Valley region since 1975.  Membership is open to all educators at any level in public, separate or post secondary education and offers a unique opportunity to be involved in promoting excellence in publicly funded education.

Our largest event is the Young Author’s Conference – held annually and last year brought together 106 young people with a love of writing. Stay connected to the classroom and join in as we gather with a well known author (Rebecca J. Anderson for YAC IX) to help young people become better writers.  Your commitment?  One  Saturday and a couple of meetings. Join us for the fun of learning with a great group of motivated kids !

This year, our tenth Young Authors Conference will be held on Saturday, April 20, 2013, at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Secondary School from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and is open to students of grades 6, 7 and 8 of the two local publicly funded boards of education (Thames Valley District School Board and London District Catholic School Board) as well as to students of 19 alternative, private or faith-based schools in our area.  Our target this year for participants is 150 and they will be supported at the conference by about 30 conference staff members.


The conference participants will hear a published Canadian author of young adult fiction speak of his or her career and of the realities of the publishing industry.  The guest author for YAC X is Amy McAuley of London, Ontario.  The young authors will have time to write and they will be encouraged to submit a short piece of their writing for inclusion in the commemorative book of the conference.  The cover of the book for YAC IX is shown above.

There is more information about Young Authors Conference X (YAC X - pronounced 'yack ten') on the YAC X page of this site.

In addition to the YACs, PDK London offers two scholarships to graduating high school students who are seriously considering a career in education.  The scholarships are entiltled the Barbara Stewart Future Educator Scholarships.  Two scholarships in the amount of $500 are awarded each year and the recipients' applications are forwarded to PDK International in Bloomington, Indianna, for consideration for additional scholarships.

PDK London maintains a strong interest in educational research and willingly shares its knowledge and expertise with local educators.  The chapter held two forums on the publicly funded education in Ontario in 1999 and 2001.  A wide variety of stakeholders in publicly funded education were invited to answer the following questions:
1.  What are the purposes of the publicly funded schools?
2.  Given the purposes of the publicly funded schools decided to-day at this forum, how effective are the publicly funded schools in achieving the purposes?
3.  Given the purposes and effectiveness of the publicly funded schools decided to-day at this forum, what changes are needed so that the publicly funded schools can achieve excellence?

More recently, PDK London focussed on the role of homework and led a group of education leaders from the two local publicly funded boards of education to address that issue with a view to helping the boards acquire useful information which could be used in revising the homework policies of each board.

Our contact person is Chapter President John Stewart and he can be reached at 519-686-4806.