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Kindergarten Winter Fun with the Grade Sevens!

Coyote Creek is a multicultural school community whose learning community encompasses a variety of experiences and perspectives.  In a survey of students, Coyote Creek students expressed an understanding that they are learning about the environment, but with little connection to the land or Aboriginal connections. 

Learning About Coast Salish Culture

Over all, Coyote Creek students believe they have opportunities to express themselves in a variety of ways, are able to name at least one adult in the school who they think believes he or she will be a success in life, and believe their strengths are highlighted and their challenges are supported.

In this ever-changing digital world, students need to become digital citizens who purposely use technology and other tools to think creatively and critically in order to be functional contributing members of society. Over all, Coyote Creek students are successful at applying basic computer skills. However, they require adult home and school supports to use technology to access educational information, document their learning, build digital portfolios, navigate and assess the validity of web sites, and manage usernames and pass codes.

Coyote Creek students require and utilize learning environments that are student-centered and inquiry-focused.  Coyote Creek students receive educational programs that are relevant, meaningful, purposeful, and submerged in real-world problems, scenarios and challenges. They participate in a variety of activities that inspire and stretch their thinking, math and science learning stations, passion projects, and Genius Hour. Coyote Creek students are given projects with open-ended questions, provided choices in their learning, and encouraged to take ownership of their learning.

Coyote Creek students are learning to self-reflect on their progress, and to evaluate feedback that provides clear direction for improvement. Coyote Creek students receive formative assessment in a variety of ways. They are engaged in on-going reflections and daily group/peer discussions. With models, prompts, and guidance, Coyote Creek students use basic terminology and visuals to accurately assess their understanding of concrete knowledge, such as reading ability, numeracy, technology, and work habits.

Coyote Creek students are actively engaged in the social nature of learning and enjoy working collaboratively with peers and adults. They are enthusiastic about talking, sharing, and presenting what they have learned. Coyote Creek students view their learning as engaging, cooperative, interactive, and connected to real world ideas.

Classroom teachers at Coyote Creek seek and are informed by the valuable information parents/guardians provide regarding their child’s strengths and areas of learning focus. Their feedback includes information about their child’s family history, medical concerns, personal and/or previous school experiences, and social and emotional development. In addition, parental feedback enlightens the need for and the results of assessments.

All Kindergarten students at Coyote Creek receive hearing and vision screening by a public health nurse. Mid-year, a district phonological awareness assessment (ELPATS) is used to assess Kindergarten students’ ability to listen for, identify, discriminate, and produce sounds. For some students, the assessment is re-administered in Grade One. This assessment helps guide instruction by informing teachers on whether to focus on onset and rime, rhyme, syllables, and/or phonemic awareness skills.

All primary students at Coyote Creek receive  reading assessments two to three times a year to assess their instructional and independent reading levels using not previously seen and meaningful texts.

Our teaching community currently utilizes valid and reliable intermediate numeracy screenings and formative numeracy assessments through inquiry numeracy projects that involve the use of technology. Future inquiry projects will examine the use of valid and reliable early numeracy screenings to identify primary students who would benefit from targeted instruction and extra support to develop specific numeracy skills.

At Coyote Creek, the students’ response to instruction is continuously monitored within the Universal Design for Learning. Recently, the Surrey School District 36 implemented a Learning by Design model to enhance student learning. The Learning by Design model is constructed to prepare learners to “think creatively and critically, communicate skillfully, and demonstrate care for self and others.” The Learning by Design model is structured to encourage innovation in learning spaces where our teachers, support staff, and students inquire, imagine, design, think critically, reflect and learn together. Therefore, quality formative assessments are used to contribute to the design and implementation of effective strategies http://surreylearningbydesign.ca/principles/quality-assessment/.  

When designing a framework for quality formative assessments, students as well as teachers are involved in the learning process. To develop the ability of Coyote Creek students to take ownership for their learning through reflection and goal setting, the students regularly engage in self and peer-assessment based on clearly established criteria. 

⭐️ Star: I like how the cover is kind of simple but still looks good.
⭐️ Star: I did good on my handwriting for once 🙂
? wish: I think I should have written more on the political parties thing.

 In addition to the  aforementioned forms of evidence that support what the teachers know about Coyote Creek students’ learning, this ‘scanning’ process identifies educators’ observations as a primary valuable source.

CoyoteCreekSchoolPhoto-2017-2

Through surveys of both staff and students, it has become evident that both Coyote Creek students and staff identify themselves as lacking a connection to the land and making Aboriginal connections within their learning. With this in mind, Coyote Creek staff have initiated a school goal towards improving understanding in this domain. The questions, “How do we, as a school, improve our understanding of Aboriginal culture and experiences? And, how do we effectively and respectfully share this knowledge with students?” emerge as questions to pursue. 

“How do we, as a school, improve our understanding of Aboriginal culture and experiences? And, how do we effectively and respectfully share this knowledge with students?”

Through an Aboriginal Education committee comprised of Coyote Creek administrators, a number of professional learning opportunities have been identified:

   – professional reading 

   – district training

   – use of school Teacher-Librarian to identify resources 

   –  Aboriginal leaders in residence program to present at Coyote Creek and share knowledge during a week-long endeavour

   –  conversations with Aboriginal Youth Childcare workers

   –  collaboration opportunities within and across school boundaries 

In each case, the goal of the learning is to improve understanding and competence in First Nations principles and history in order to build confidence in addressing and embedding these within the curriculum.

“How do we, as a school, improve our understanding of Aboriginal culture and experiences? And, how do we effectively and respectfully share this knowledge with students?”

The journey has begun with staff reading authentic texts (both fiction and non-fiction writing from aboriginal perspectives), that seek to represent some of the Aboriginal experience in Canada and North America. Our Aboriginal committee (comprised of staff and administrators)  has met to discuss Aboriginal principles and ways  to attain deeper understanding and empathy for Indigenous peoples. With this understanding, we have already begun to initiate school-wide Aboriginal recognition and learning. 

Staff of Coyote Creek actively seek  sources of learning about Indigenous perspectives. District workshops, external organizations who provide learning through a variety of presentations , our school based Aboriginal Support Worker, district based Aboriginal Department, and information available through our Teacher-librarian have all been sources of professional learning. Additionally, Coyote Creek is thrilled to have a staff that eagerly collaborates and shares learning amongst each other, in order to maximize learning across staff.

Coyote Creek’s learning plan is to provide continued opportunities for learning for both students and staff.  Through professional development, in-school presentations, resources, and opportunities for dialogue, Coyote Creek students and staff will have the opportunity to both improve understanding and find ways to share new learning.