Elementary School Plan for Student Success

Team Members Grade 2 Teachers: R. Dhaliwal and L. McMillan; Grade 3 Teachers: S. Gravel; M. Blouin, Mrs. James, LSS & ELL Teachers,

School Context South Poplar Traditional School: http://southpoplar.sd34.bc.ca Ministry of Education: http://www.discoveryourschool.gov.bc.ca

Inquiry Question Driver: How can we best personalize students’ learning with the core competencies required to enhance, deepen and enrich students’ learning? How does focusing on teaching writing mechanics and grammar into daily lessons transfer to student’s independent writing? How does providing target instruction to increase students’ higher order, critical thinking skills develop their ability to analyze, evaluate and/or synthesize information?

Rationale

(Why are we doing this?) (Please refer to school data)

• To expose and teach students to use analytical thought and creative in their written responses

• The new curriculum requires students to be able to demonstrate learning and thinking in a variety of ways. By exploring the use of technology to develop and apply understanding of given writing outcomes, students will be able to further improve their personal: narrative, story, imaginative writing as well as their informational and research

• To better meet the growing needs of our ELL students – observing a trend that ELL students are not as strong non-ELL students in writing performance, particularly in the area of mechanics and proper grammar.

• All students benefit from differentiated approaches. (Extending/challenging learning/supporting learning in a variety of ways)

• Strong writing and communication skills are a perquisite for the 21st Century citizen

• Providing opportunities for the students to become technological advanced – to meet the needs of the 21st century change in learning – by engaging students with technology and visual learning

2%

49%42%

7%

Grade 3 Writing 2017/18Term 3

NYM MM FM EE

Strategies Leadership/Teamwork Professional Learning and/or Resources

Collaboration to develop common scope and sequence Collaboration to develop common strategies and review student writing achievements and self assessment practices

Grade 2 & 3 Classroom/Technology/LA/ELL Teachers Regular and ongoing Collaboration Meetings Co-Teaching and Planning with ELL/LSS and Technology/Learning Commons Support Teachers

Review current writing understanding, strategies and assessment practices –specifically Self Assessment practices

Grade 2 & 3 Classroom/Technology/LSS/ELL Teachers District and/or Provincial Inservices: Primary Teachers’ Conference in October Best Practices: Garfield Gini-Newman, Tom Schwimmer, Charity Allen; Adrienne Gear, Gini Roja, ExploZone

Professional Readings and Attending In-services Grade 2 & 3 Classroom/Technology/LA/ELL Teachers District and/or Provincial Inservices: PITA Conference in October Best Practices: Garfield Gini-Newman, Tom Schwimmer, Charity Allen; Adrienne Gear, Gini Roja, ExploZone

Academic Vocabulary/Word Bank, Graphic Organizers and targeted writing lessons

Grade 2 & 3 Classroom/Technology/LA/ELL Teachers Classroom lessons/Demo-Lessons/ Co-Teaching and/or Peer observation/reflection; School and District ELL Department; Co-Teaching Lessons &/or Units Gini Rojas Garfield Gini-Newman

Technology Representation: Pic Collage; Haiku Deck; Glogster; Keynote and other Apps

Grade 2 & 3 Classroom and Technology Support Teachers School-Based Technology and Learning Commons Support Teacher & District Curriculum & Technology Helping Teachers

Progress and Impact (How do you know?)

Grade 2: ✓ Notice a change in students’ behavior – drive, passion, and excitement. ✓ With support, students are becoming critical thinkers and life longer learners ✓ Setting tangible and measurable goals built success – using clear standards on how their writing can be improved. ✓ It’s not about being right and wrong it’s becoming aware of how you’re doing and what you need to move forward. ✓ Throughout the self-assessment process we are shifting students’ thinking in such a way that we are never finished with our writing piece and students

are taking an active role in the process resulting in true ownership ✓ Now it is about moving from quick results of writing piece to focusing more on teaching the steps of writing and developing students individual writing

skills, strategies and capacities that allows them to independently produce writing of quality. ✓ Students and their teachers are ‘excited’ about writing and the writing process

Grade 3: Both Divisions 5 and 6 followed the PM Writing program closely and also implemented many of Adrienne Gear’s Writing Power lessons. Graphic organizers were used for each genre, and self assessment was a strong focus. ELL support was given to Division 6 in the afternoons on Mondays, and to Division 5 on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, when co-teaching with Mrs. VanHove took place. Together we implemented various scaffolded lessons to help the students understand each genre. With the extra funding to hire additional classroom support, Division 6 also had Miss Bergen in our class every Wednesday in term three to help support students with their writing. Miss Gravel and Miss Blouin met on a regular basis to plan units, discuss each class’s progress, and to share resources. We also planned the lessons we would use to prepare the students for the Grade 3 Write. We were able to note growth in our students’ writing during the course of the year. For some students, this meant a large change such as being able to write a new

genre accurately or organize their writing into cohesive paragraphs. For other students, growth may have been on a smaller, such as being able to use correct

punctuation and capital letters in their writing. All students participated in self-assessment and began to understand the value of “writer’s mumbles,” shared editing,

and written self-assessment forms.

Both teachers noticed similarities in the overall marks of their students’ Grade 3 Writes. This was affirming, since we are first time partners who have been trying to

align our teaching styles and lessons where possible. After having read Miss Gravel’s class writes Ms. Blouin noticed a difference in having a program that has a

stronger Writing Power focus and she intends to implement more of Adrienne Gear’s lessons next year (i.e. paragraph “drawers” lesson).

Although Miss Gravel and Miss Blouin both noticed growth in their students’ writing during the course of the year, it would be highly desirable to measure growth

over several years’ time if the school were to share a common goal of writing skills development. This would help determine whether growth was short-term (one

year) or marked a permanent change in students’ learning.

Connections to the Aboriginal Enhancement Agreement

1. Reading Success for each child

2. Cultural Awareness and pride

3. Increased sense of belonging

- Incorporate Aboriginal teaching and/or connections in lessons - Provide small group instruction during Literacy Blocks - Explore cultures of Canada and within class demographics - Use a variety of Aboriginal Writing/Texts/Books and materials that connect to Aboriginal Culture - Continual positive feedback to all students

Connections to the Elementary Operational Plan

1. Early Learning

2. Grade Three reading imperative

3. Student Social and Emotional Learning.

- Grade Group teams will continue further extend students’ literacy skills, strategies and independence to have students fully meet or exceed grade expectations in Reading and Writing - Teacher teams will collaborate with the ELL Department to further enhance students oral, reading, writing, and thinking skills particularly around the 4 C’s and academic language - Teacher teams will participate in the district’s CRYR and IBLT (Year #2) and explore participating in the district’s ExploZone Professional Learning opportunities to further enhance students’ demonstration of learning - All teachers are members of a PLC that drives this goal; teams will collaborate and share out at PLC Collaboration time and s staff meetings - Staff will participate in Professional Development to further develop and support their understanding while improving student achievement in new curriculum and 21st Century Learning - Teacher teams will begin to implement common essential learning outcomes/strategies, vocabulary and assessment practices - Promote and Develop students’ Self-regulation skills to further develop independent academic skills and abilities

Making Connections: Explain how your school goal aligns with the Aboriginal Enhancement Agreement any of the following; Grade Three Imperative, Social Emotional Learning, the revised curriculum.