School Learning Plan - Spring Creek Community School
Theory of Action
If we expose students to real world problems through inquiry and/or real-world projects then students will develop collaborative skills by respecting and sharing diverse perspectives, being empathetic listeners, and solving problems in a peaceful way.
We believe that by designing real-world project-based units and lessons that foster teamwork, interdependence, and social, emotional, and intercultural skills, students will be exposed to range of contexts that will enhance both their academic and social/emotional growth. More specifically, learning can be deepened and made more meaningful when it occurs in student teams, as collaboration skills have the potential to open new pathways to learning. It is our goal that collaboration will positively influence numeracy, literacy and mental health, areas of concern as identified by our data dashboard.
As Spring Creek Community School exists on the traditional shared territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Líl̓wat nations, it is imperative we incorporate these Nations’ understandings and way of being related to collaboration as strategies to achieve our goals. We will use the Líl̓wat learning principle of Celhcelh (that states each person being responsible for their own and others learning, always seeking learning opportunities) and the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh key value of Chenchénstway (meaning to uphold one another and support one another, and all parties have equal power and bring equal value) as lenses through which we can create a culture of collaboration.
Process for Determining Area of Student Learning of Most Concern
Data continues to be the driver for identifying areas of concern at SCCS. Data from the 2020-21 school year indicated our students in grades 4 – 7 felt their ability in numeracy is low. We have seen marginal increases in ability feelings around numeracy data from 2021-22. Additionally, taking ownership of their learning and personalizing their learning were also areas of concern; however, we fully understand that the foundations of literacy and numeracy start in early primary, and are critical in ensuring our youngest learners do not contribute to the same results when they contribute to the data in their intermediate years. This information continues to provide the rationale for the creation of this School Learning Plan (SLP).
With regards to data and continuity from the 2021-22 SLP to the 2022-23 SLP at SCCS, there have been changes from the survey providers in terms of the disaggregated raw data provided. Because of this, the data sets from last year to this year do not necessarily align for the Student Learning Survey and the FSA. While the data is still valid, the presentation of the data has been altered in this year’s SLP.
Student Learning Survey (Grades 4 & 7)
Personalization:
Metrics indicated a downward trend in students learning creative ways to think of innovative ideas from Grade 7 students. Alongside this trend was a significant drop in students learning to be a critical thinker. Learning in areas of interest ranged from an average of 15% in grade 4 to 33% in Grade 7 while having choice in what they learn was below 20% in both grades. All these combined trends continue to be a concern as the low results in learning and thinking in diverse ways with students being given voice and choice in their classrooms is in contradiction with our SD48 enduring understanding of personalization is the way forward.
Numeracy and Literacy:
Grade 7 students’ perception of their ability in numeracy is now showing growth over the last 3 years, while grade 4 students showed a slight drop off in the 2021-22 data. For both grades 4 and 7 students, we feel the 60% range of students feeling they are getting better at math, reading and writing does not match with our philosophy of meeting students where they are at and moving them forward.
Collaboration:
The data suggests that less group work is occurring over a three-year trend in grade 4, while grade 7 has seen an overall decline as well. We want to improve personalized learning for students, as well as build confidence in our learners with respect to literacy and numeracy while exposing our students to group work to build our competency skill of collaboration.
Middle Years Development Instrument (Grade 5)
Inclusion:
People caring about each other has dropped by 24% in grade 5 students to around Provincial averages of 55%. School belonging has dropped by 25% to below Provincial average. These declines are significant and contrast with our enduring understanding that inclusion is a right. We would not expect an inclusive environment to yield low results in these areas.
Absence of worries has dropped significantly while caring adults has stayed similar from year to year. This rise in anxiety can be attributed to many factors; however, as a school we have the means to help support this metric.
Our School Survey (OSS Grades 5 & 6)
Safety:
Feelings of safety dropped 10% over last year, but still hovering around the Canadian norm. Sense of belonging has been trending toward the Canadian norm and sits only 2% below. Community events and gatherings of our student body have been extremely limited during the pandemic and are a likely contributor to this metric. The level of anxiety in SCCS students jumped above the Canadian norm by 4%. This was likely related to COVID, climate change and international war.
Self-worth:
Expectations for success have been on a decline for the last several years with a drop of 0.3 last year. SCCS sits 1.2 below Canadian average. Students valuing outcomes fell 9% landing 11% below the Canadian norm.
Sense of Belonging:
Positive teacher-student relationships declined 0.5 staying below the Canadian norm. Bullying and exclusion rose significantly after a similar sized drop the year prior from 19% to 34% above the Canadian norm of 27%. We believe the mindset of our students associated with these metrics need improvement. Continuing to emphasize morning circle check-ins with students will likely continue to see gains in these metrics.
We identify student safety, expectations for success and valuing school outcomes as areas of concern from the OSS data.
FSA (Grades 4 & 7)
The writing and reading results from past years have been added together and averaged for comparison purposes. Current year results in literacy have increased in both grades 4 & 7. Numeracy results in grade 4 continue to trend downward, while grade 7 best fit shows the % of students with on-track or extending to be consistently in the mid 70s. We recognize the FSA is a standardized test and only allows students one way to receive a question (read) and respond to a question (write), albeit in paper and online formats. The difference between male and female results are negligible except for literacy in grade 7 over time, and grade 4 in 2020-21 where we continually see male students underperforming in comparison to their female peers. We consider the downward trends in writing and numeracy for both grades of students concerning. Longitudinal data on the cognitive levels will provide better data to consider targeted interventions.
Report Card Data (Grades 4, 7 and all grades)
ELA & numeracy 4 rebounding in 2021-22 over prior years. ELA and numeracy 7 slightly increasing for the last 2 years. Overall, grades K-12 literacy and math on the decline for the past 3 years. This general trend is one of concern and a reason that Numeracy and Literacy are key components of our SLP.
School Derived Collaboration Data
Students self-assessed as interpersonal and team related skills being the area in need of attention, as 63% of the student base indicated emerging or developing. 60% of our students indicated working interdependently as a team was an area where they are emerging or developing. This information provides a baseline to compare future data as a benchmark of the effectiveness of our SLP.
Triangulation
When we look at the results from student’s perspectives from the Student Learning Survey in conjunction with FSA results in numeracy and writing and the report cards results in grades 4 and 7 numeracy, the data all suggest correlation and a need to focus on numeracy as an academic area.
Expectations for success from the OSS and Student learning survey suggest mindset is another significant area of concern. Students need to feel confident as a learner and be able to self-reflect on their advances in learning both writing and numeracy at school. Valuing school outcomes and having lofty expectations are important in achieving academic goals.
Specific Groups of Students of Most Concern
Our data does not indicate any specific concerns regarding any specific demographic of students. The data analyzed suggests a need to focus on our intermediate students at the school; however, we know the importance of early intervention with our primary students and our strategies will continue to scaffold to include our primary learners as well.
We do see some concerning data surrounding our grade 4 students and relative drops in literacy and numeracy achievement. There is also a slight concern over the male students and their writing results on the FSA assessment for grade 7 students, as they consistently perform lower than the female students.
Certainly, the feelings of progression in literacy and numeracy for our grade 4 and 7 students is concerning. Couple this with the indication that there exist low expectations and low value of school results, there is concern of waning engagement and motivation for students in general.
Desired Knowledge and Skills for Students and Staff
Students:
- Students will continue to use Spring Creek’s common set of values - Clear values that are consistent through every grade/year;
- Students will be able to personalize their learning and identify what they need as a learner to succeed;
- Student will be able to communicate strengths, stretches and perceptions to their peers; and,
- Students will have the ability to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.
Staff:
- Staff will develop competencies through our Professional Learning Plan which will focus on MAP, Daily 5, and Numeracy instruction, decolonizing our practice;
- Staff will create opportunities to embed our district and school values in their classrooms;
- Staff will collaboratively build inquiry projects that will allow students to collaborate and share understanding as learners;
- Staff will continue to design learning that is meaningful and accessible for all students;
- Staff will collaboratively design strategies and specific interventions to support literacy and numeracy needs; and,
- Staff will incorporate the 4 Blankets, Lil’wat Principles of Learning and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh value of Chenchénstway in inquiry projects.
Strategies and Structures
At Spring Creek Community School, we employ strategies in alignment with School District 48’s Pathways to Learning. We are also on a journey to embrace the Lil’wat Principles of Learning and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh value of Chenchénstway in our instruction and way of being to enable students to personalize their learning and the learning of others. We hope to continue to support student mental health and well-being and academics through our culture of student care, engagement, acceptance, and inclusion at Spring Creek through our 4 Be’s of Spring Creek and our bear paws of positive recognition.
Spring Creek Strategies:
- Positive Behaviour Intervention Strategy, using the 4 Be’s (Engaged, Inclusive, Safe, Caring) to identify and reward our students exuding SCCS values;
- Student collaboration through inquiry and project-based learning;
- Staff Professional Learning with Carole Fullerton, Mathology, MAP, Monique Grey-Smith Modules, Janice Novakowski, Gail Boushey;
- Sharing authentic, real-world units at staff meetings;
- Morning Circle check-in embedded in our daily schedule for all classes;
- 4 blankets of resiliency K to 7;
- Restorative Practice and teaching growth mindset (Zones of Regulation, Mind Up);
- Early intervention in the primary grades for those vulnerable students; and,
- Community Partnerships: WCSS, WAGS, AWARE Whistler, Sport for Life, Women’s Centre
Technology
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Purpose and Authenticity
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Play and Exploration
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Assessment
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Collaboration
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Engagement
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Response to Intervention (RTI)
Our RTI starts with our strength-based classroom composition meetings at the end of each school year looking forward to the next. We build purposeful, pro social balanced classes. At the beginning of a new school year, we then conduct our classroom mapping. In this process, we look to identify those vulnerable students and allocate our learning support resources accordingly:
- ILT;
- ELL;
- Tier 1 interventions via Collaborative Support Teacher;
- Learning Services, Counselling; and,
- IST.
As the school year progresses, we use our School Based Team (SBT) as an avenue for staff to bring struggling students to have a wraparound approach to intervention. Our second classroom mapping meetings occur after winter break where we relook at students, needs in the classroom, and redistribute resources based on changes.
Assessment Evidence
We will continue to collect the evidence from surveys and compare results to our baseline year (2021 data). We will also continue to collect evidence via the ELP and, the soon to be implemented Carole Fullerton derived Numeracy assessment. Triangulating data from student self-reflection, FSA, the Student Learning Survey, and the new Numeracy Assessment will likely provide evidence about the effectiveness of our strategies. We will continue to compare results to our established baseline of student ability with collaborating through our student self-assessment (SD48 has established a student rubric based on a collaboration rubric by McEachen & Quinn (2019)). We will then be able to follow cohort data through the school years to add another data set to help determine the level of success of our SLP. This self-assessment will be focused on the intermediate level to coincide with our other data sets.
Teachers currently have reading assessments, EDI, ELP, MDI, reporting data and student self-assessments and reflections to inform their instruction. Add to this the Numeracy assessment, and teachers should be armed with enough data to help guide their instructional practice to positively impact student learning and instill confidence in our learners.