Our Learning Plan - Chief Tomat Elementary

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Chief Tomat Elementary

Home of the Wolverines

Our Learning Plan

2020 2021 CTE Learning Plan and Evidence.pdf

2019/2020

We began in September 2019, by reviewing the big ideas and themes identified last year. For the purpose of launching into the learning phase of inquiry, we identified a learning focus for our staff:

our inquiry.png

Through collaborative inquiry, how can we nurture "self-regulated" learners through engaging, powerful and purposeful learning tasks?

Our work is also guided by the Central Okanagan Public School's Achievement Contract which identifies goals and objectives for each learner in our district. Please refer to the district website for more information. In summary, the objectives are listed below:

To develop strong emergent literacy skills of Pre-K and Kindergarten Children
To ensure development of the foundational early literacy skills of grade 1-3 with 94% of students meeting or exceeding expectations on the Early Learning Profile
To ensure continued development of communication and literacy skills of students in grades 4-12; specifically, students' ability to access, understand, process and effectively use oral, written, digital, and multimedia forms of communication for a range of purposes and audiences with 90% of students meeting or exceeding expectations on their report cards.
To enhance literacy skill development of Primary Aboriginal Students with 90% meeting or exceeding expectations in literacy.

Structures and supports were established for our staff to begin learning. Each monthly staff meeting was dedicated to our inquiry and explored dimensions of self-regulation. Our teachers developed collaborative inquiry teams and began to meet every Thursday, on a rotational schedule, to deepen their learning. This structure will continue throughout the year. Our district's collaborative Learning Services team (also referred to as the Instructional Leadership Team) attends our school this day to support learning by:

attending teacher collaborative inquiry meetings
co-planning and co-teaching lessons to support teacher inquiry
being a source of educational research and best practice for our teams
using the OECD Principles of Learning and the First People's Principles of Learning to guide our work

SCANNING:

As the new principal of Chief Tomat Elementary School, it was important for me to begin our work in the scanning phase. Once collected, the following scanning information below will be shared with our school team including staff and parents. As well, it will be posted on our learning journey. Scanning will include information and voices from the following sources:

Staff scan. In October, Mrs. Kaupp spent time with each staff and asked the following questions:

What excites you most about where we are headed as a school? What concerns you?
What learning are you engaged in and how is it making a difference for our learners? What are your next steps? What support do you need?
Tell me about the ways our school helps students, staff and families feel like they belong?

Student scan. We are currently interviewing students around their learning, why it is important and next steps. We are asking students to tell us about adults at school who believe in them. Other questions are designed to identify strategies that students may or may not use to navigate learning.
Parent/Caregiver scan. At the beginning of October 2019, parents were given the opportunity to answer the following questions:

Tell me about some of the ways our school helps your child feel like they belong?
What excites you most about they way our school is headed? What concerns you?
What learning is your child engaged in? Why is it important?
What are some things we could do to support you and your child's learning?

Literacy Assessment Data:

In October 2019, our teachers assessed our student's literacy skills. This information will help guide instruction and additional support each child may need. Our school uses a "School Wide Write" to assess our learners writing skills. Our school uses another assessment known as the Early Literacy Profile" which assesses each area of literacy and provides a reading level for each learner. Although this literacy assessment is 'ongoing' the initial data or snapshot will be used in this scan.

Report Card data-specifically numeracy information
Collaborative Teacher Meetings such as 'Class a Glance' meetings are a great source of scanning information. Each teacher shares information about their class's strengths, learning challenges, and needs.
School Based Team meetings and meetings with parents. During these meetings, we work together in efforts to understand each learner and make a plan that is specifically tailored to the child's needs.
Foundational Skills Assessment data, a BC Ministry of Education assessment which looks at math and literacy skills
Information shared and gathered during PAC meetings
Grade 4 Ministry of Education, Learning Survey- completed in February 2020

In February 2020, the information gathered from the 2019-2020 scan was shared with our learning community in efforts to continue our inquiry. Staff and parents, who serve on the Parent Advisory Council, looked at the results of the parent and student scan. During the February 2020 staff meeting, teachers examined this data along with first term report card data, school wide write data, Early Learning Profile data and FSA results. The staff documented their thinking in terms of:

Notices
Wonders or questions they had
Important and consistent trends

Student Scan: Approximately 35% of our student population, participated in this survey. From the data collected, all students who were scanned reported they believe there are three or more adults who believe they will be a success in life. Students named a variety of staff including teachers, CEAs, the principal, the custodian and Noon Hour Supervisors. When asked about their learning and why it is important, students shared about content specific learning (titles) such as "reading, writing, and math." Often they shared strategies they were learning. Many students were able to make connections to why their learning was important with real life applications. Students overwhelmingly took a positive stance over how their learning was going. The majority of students shared their learning was going "good" or "really well." When asked about their "next steps" in learning, the data showed us that students had a difficult time with this area. They could not articulate their next steps on the continuum of learning or their personal learning goals. Most students were able to articulate strategies they would use during learning if they felt 'stuck' or 'frustrated.'

Grade 4 Learning Survey: Approximately 86% of our grade 4 students participated in this survey. The results of this survey showed consistent patterns; overall, most students feel our school is a place where they belong, feel welcome and safe (82%-97%), most students could name 3 or more adults at school who believe they will be a success in life, and most students feel happy at our school and like being here (85%-87%). Interestingly, when asked, "Do you know what things are considered when you work is assessed?" 65% of students said that they had some knowledge of this.

Parent Scan:

The same approached was used to examine parent responses. Responses were sorted into common themes. From there, trends were identified. Please see here for results of the parent scan: Emerging Themes from the Parent Survey January 2020.pdf

FOCUSING:

Please refer to our 'Evidence of Learning" to view some of our staff meeting and other student learning activities.

In mid-March 2020, the BC Ministry of Education announced the suspension of all in-school instruction for students due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In close collaboration with the Ministry of Education, and our school board, our CTE community of learners (students, parents and staff), shifted from in-class to remote learning. Please see here for a summary of our journey together: March to June 2020.pdf

After reflecting on our journey and experiences, our students and staff participated in a school wide inquiry project for the month of June. CTE is Digging for Gold!.pdf

Leveraging the positive outcomes for improved student learning at CTE:

TOGETHERNESS: Team Wolverines! This situation caused us to slow down. Our team grew in patience, kindness and togetherness. As a staff, but also as individuals, we listened more and considered the needs and perspectives of staff members, students and our CTE families. Our staff motto over this period was “Tough times don’t last, but tough teams do!” During this time, our team developed a new school motto: “CTE a community of Learners; engaging hearts and growing leaders.” How can we continue to grow as a caring, united community?
COLLABORATION: Our teachers, CEAs and support staff worked collaboratively to develop and build learning opportunities for our students and to solve technical issues as they arose. As a school team, we collaborated throughout the week to discuss issues, solve problems and to schedule our time to ensure we connected with our students and their families. How can we make “collaboration” a continued, essential and regular part of planning for student learning?
INNOVATION and LEARNING: This situation challenged us to be innovative. “Necessity is the mother of invention.” As a staff, we had only one option; to collaborate, learn and be innovative. Moving forward, how can we hold on to these engaging and innovative practices? (flipped classroom, providing choice and options for students, blended learning, outdoor learning, interest and inquiry based learning, etc.)
TECHNOLOGY INCREASES ACCESS FOR ALL LEARNERS: Using technology to learn allows for increased differentiation. Teachers often prepared recorded videos teaching specific skills. How can we use these recordings to provide group work and extra practice within our classrooms next year? Technology tools, such as speech to text and text to speech, give students with diverse-abilities access to learning. How can we leverage these tech skills so they are accessible to learners each and every day in our school? .
COMMUNICATION: Communication was particularly important over the course of these challenging times. How can we continue to improve our communication with our community?

2018/2019

"One thing"

In April of 2018, Mr. Auclair asked staff and parents to respond on three questions:

What's one thing you are proud of at Chief Tomat Elementary School
What's one thing that you would like to grow?
What's one thing that we should know?

Based on this feedback and an Appreciate Iquiry model, we have come up with the following to represent our growth for the 2018/2019 school year

The circle in the center represents what we are proud of at CTE
The four cicles on the outside represent areas we would like to grow
The notes represent specific topics of focus

Finding Joy

Education should be a joyful experience. In order to find joy, we believe that our students need to find their "flow"

We will use the following chart as a way to assess our students, as well for our students to assess themselves, to determine if they are in the "flow," which in turn will make their education experience more joyful

The-flow-channel-based-on-Csikszentmihalyi-4-p-74-and-Falstein-6-depicting-num.png

2016/17 Learning Journey (Evidence)

Implementing Redesigned Curriculum

CTE staff have invested significantly in learning/implementing the redesigned curriculum
Implementation Day: Collaborating with ILT (Instructional Leadership Team) and Glenrosa Elementary Staff - integration of provocation tables, science and language arts
Implementation Day: Inclusive Planning Model (Shelley Moore)