Working Together to Achieve Wildly Important Goals
After our presentation from David George on January 16th at our Admin Council Meeting, our administrative team decided that there were some great ideas that we could implement with our own staff in order to track our long term goals more closely and focus on some aspects closely in the coming months. Alli and myself shared main ideas from our PD session with our staff on our Staff Planning Day, January 31st and we chose to really zero in our Numeracy Goal for the next few months. Focusing on what role each teacher plays in Numeracy Instruction, including our E.A.s and Music Specialists roles in Numeracy. Below are the notes from our Staff Planning Day, as well as the school wide visual we created as a Staff to guide us. Staff worked in grade level clusters to identify the most effective teaching strategies they had found this year from our school-wide Numeracy PD as well as our PLC group sharing on Numeracy strategies and staff leaders sharing during bi-weekly staff meetings. Each group consolidated their lists into strategies that could make the most impact and then identified the strategies they used on a regular basis. They were then asked to make one commitment on an index card, that their group could hold them accountable for in the coming weeks. As a staff, we will revisit this visual, and add more sticky notes to the strategies that staff have tried. Our goal by the end of March is to have each staff member have tried one new strategy to make an impact in their own classroom, which ultimately contributes to our school goal that: Teachers will possess a deep understanding of pedagogy that develops numeracy and literacy skills.
Collaborating with other leaders to address challenges and priorities: This year I have worked with both Paul and Audrey to address different challenges and they have been a huge support system. Paul and I have met as a Leader2Leader group at his school and are hoping to visit again to start up the school year. We have created agendas for each of our meetings as the year progresses, so that our collaborative time has been effective. Audrey and I have continued to communicate on a weekly basis and when items pop up to ensure we are taking common approaches when dealing with families and situations in our community. In addition, Paul has arranged Elementary Administration meetings for Inter school collaboration day to expand our mentor ship and include others. We have had great turn outs each time, and we have addressed many issues, shared resources, and looked at procedures together to address common concerns or situations.
Accessing, sharing and using a range of data to determine progress towards achieving goals.
This year we have used a variety of data to inform our decision making including:
Accountability Pillar Surveys
Gr. 6 PATS
Grade 1-6 Math MIPI results
Our School Survey
Fountas & Pinnell Benchmarking Data
Play First Lunch Time Survey
Collection of Data through Public Works and EBS program
Breakfast Program Student survey and participation rates
This data has been helpful when determining our school goals, monitoring student behaviour, effectively tracking student progress and communicating with stakeholders.
Promoting innovation, enabling positive change, and fostering commitment to continuous improvement
One of my dreams for A.B Daley school was the creation of our CTF program which would allow for collaboartion between JTFoster and our site and provide our students with unique programming opportunities. Last year, Audrey and I began to plan together by surveying our students about programs they would like to see at the school. We also wanted to make sure we were utilizing expertise at both sites. We were able to create a program for our grades 4-6 students that includes options such as:
Intro to Band
Intro to Show
Sewing
Digital Citizenship
Science Lab
STEM Building Challenges
Robotics
We follow the guidelines set out by Alberta Education in the CTF Program of Studies and report on the outcomes that apply to our courses individually. Students and their parents completed "Choice Forms" for the year, and then we put students in groups based on their preferences. Each of the options focuses on processes and skills that students use in the real world. Students switched their "Choices" three times this year and it has been a success!
Next year, we are hoping to include more "Choices" for students so that groups are smaller. We would also like to include parent volunteers to help so that we could offer choices such as cooking, drama, and french. We see this program expanding as well to include our division 1 students.