Part 1: Analysis of Context

1. What do we know about our learners?

Bear Creek Bruins love learning.

Our community of learners are diverse, empathetic, caring, and kind.

In the classroom, children at Bear Creek are enthusiastic about their education. Our learners work and learn well alongside their teachers, EAs, principal, and staff. They also like to share their learning through conversations, displays, community nights, or online portfolios. Learners at Bear Creek like to learn in a wide variety of ways. Our children learn through play, building, making, writing, talking, creating, singing, moving, reading, and thinking.

In our classrooms, our students are developing critical and creative thinking skills. Our younger students learn diverse literacy and numeracy strategies with our primary teachers and early learning specialists. Our older students learn critical and creative thinking strategies and skills through design processes, Young Entrepreneurs, coding, Classroom Champions, environmental stewardship, varied literacy programs,  problem-based learning in numeracy and First People’s Principles of Learning. Our children are developing thinking skills that will help them become lifelong learners. Our diverse, innovative, and enthusiastic teaching and support staff complement our equally special blend of learners.

Developing these competencies in our classrooms helps our learners prepare for their education and life in the real world.

With a unique population entering our school everyday, we also know there are many different needs that must be met before learning can begin. As we celebrate student diversity, we also strive to come together to regulate our emotions and behavior to develop a readiness to learn and participate with others at Bear Creek.

2. What evidence supports what we know about our learners?

Bear Creek is an active school with active students. The mix of diversity and action can cause the occasional issue on the playground, soccer field, or in the classroom and hallways. Students are often welcomed after each transition (morning, recess, lunch, music class, PE, library or field trips) with tools to calm their bodies and focus their attention. Often, the diverse social-emotional needs of our students create an equally diverse set of challenges to begin learning. Bear Creek looks to the personal awareness and responsibility competencies to support our students’ emotional and social well-being while under our care. Our learning community (students, teachers, and staff) are working to build the “skills, strategies, and dispositions that help students to stay healthy and active, set goals, monitor progress, regulate emotions, respect their own rights and the rights of others, manage stress and persevere in difficult situations” (Personal Awareness and Responsibility Competency; Ministry of Education; 2016). By focusing on personal awareness and responsibility, especially self-regulation, we can build self-respect, self-confidence, and strong sense of personal well-being in our learners. As our students learn more strategies to self-regulate and build their self-respect and confidence, independence in their learning and their capacity to affect the well-being of others will also improve. We hope these skills will not only serve them well in school but also at home and later in life.

Part 2: Focus and Planning

3. What focus emerges as a question to pursue?

Bear Creek’s focus narrows to social-emotional learning (SEL).

Our teachers and staff sought a common plan and theme to address the emotional needs of our learners. This desire to meet the emotional needs of our students, directed our exploration towards a school-wide focus of social-emotional learning.

Teachers and staff look for our students to learn self regulation strategies so that they become self aware of their behavior, their attention. We also hope our students are able to reduce stress and optimize their learning. One area that draws our attention is sensory regulation and integration help our students and staff learn to manage sensory input from the environment so they can process and respond in appropriate ways.

The team at Bear Creek is beginning to introduce a wide variety of SEL  practices. While in its early stages, we notice that students are aware of the language surrounding SEL (Zones, MindUp). We are working towards student independence in identifying emotions (through the Zones) and self-selecting the strategies to regulate those emotions.

Guiding Question
  • How can school-wide implementation of SEL language, lessons and goals foster improved social responsibility around the school community and student engagement in the classroom?

4. What professional learning do we need?

Currently, we will continue to :
  • explore the idea including professional development experiences around SEL and Self Regulation.
  • share information and opportunities, update our inquiries, and reflect on our SEL practices at staff meetings.
  • participate in release days through school district inquiry grant proposals that provide additional collaboration time for teachers to continue our work with SEL.
  • provide resources and tools for staff and students: Mind Up books, Zones of Regulation books, monthly lessons, check-in posters, wiggle cushions, focus tools, balls, egg chairs, tents.
  • explore and share other resources – Mind Yeti, breathing exercises, and other digital tools.
  • collaborate and create seasonal themes for integration throughout the school.
  • meet as an inquiry group to learn, explore, and share SEL theory, teaching, and learning.
  • build an online database for staff to connect, share, and collaborate with SEL resources.
  • maintain and improve Zones room for whole school to use, which includes Zones of Regulation Posters , specific strategies, and many sensory tools; such as rocks, sand, blocks, books, puzzles, mini trampolines, tunnels, tents, balance balls, music, soft lighting,
  • promote Zones of Regulation common language from students and staff.
  • integrate and implement strategies used with SEL teacher in 2015-2016.
  • share whole school DPA during the first 15 minutes of school day followed by a student and staff Zones check in.

5. What is our plan?

Next, we want to:
  • research and explore different SEL strategies.
  • provide regular updates and ideas through our weekly memo and staff meetings.
  • update SEL staff and student strategy boards to share themes, strategies, and activities.
  • build new monthly theme information, strategies, and activities.
  • integrate SEL into our assemblies and organize school-wide SEL activities.
  • create and collaborate through an inquiry team to adapt different strategies to meet different needs at different ages.
  • build consistency among the tools and strategies used in the school.
  • collect a wide variety of tools and strategies to meet the diverse needs of our students.
  • share our learning with our students and families through our classroom practices and regular means of sharing.
  • connect SEL with core competencies and big ideas.
  • integrate Zones of Regulation and emotional learning into school-wide fine arts programs and events
  • explore a variety of brain breaks to include in our classrooms
  • provide guest speakers as professional development opportunities (such as yoga in the classroom)
  • create a school-wide positive, SEL clothing promotion

Part 3: Reflect, Adjust, Celebrate

6. How will we know our plan is making a difference? (evidence / success criteria)

We know we are making a difference in the lives and learning of our students. We use a variety of quantitative and qualitative data to track our progress, make adjustments, and support our inquiry.

Our preference for monitoring our progress is to engage with student voice because it is powerful and effective. Checking in with our learners inspires and guides our practice. Each teacher has their unique strategy for greeting and monitoring their class. As part of our inquiry, we are using common language so we can all check in with different students throughout the day. Teachers and staff at recess or lunch can ask what zone a child is in. Counselors and child care workers can use a SEL poster to help a child identify their feelings. Administrators can pull out a toolbox and share strategies to calm students or support their learning. We know our inquiry is becoming successful because we can all check in with students, share common and tools and rely on the same strategies to help our students regulate themselves.

We are also collecting data through staff and student surveys to explore the depth of SEL integration in our school. In our most recent student survey:

  • 97% of primary and intermediate students can describe the emotions and feelings associated with the blue zone.
  • 99% of primary and intermediate students can describe the emotions and feelings associated with the green zone.
  • 95% of primary and intermediate students can describe the emotions and feelings associated with the yellow zone.
  • 95% of primary and intermediate students can describe the emotions and feelings associated with the red zone.
  • 65% of our students are most regularly in the green zone. (23% are regularly in the blue zone).
  • 75% of our students can identify multiple strategies to elevate themselves out of the blue zone.
  • 80% of our students can identify multiple strategies to maintain themselves in the green zone.
  • 80% of our students can identify multiple strategies to calm and regulate themselves in the yellow and red zones.
  • 100% of our students can select their favourite strategy or tool to keep them in the green zone.

Our most recent staff survey found:

  • 85% of our teachers describe SEL as very important in their classrooms (15% – important).
  • 80% of our teachers use SEL as part of their regular classroom language and classroom management strategies.
  • 75% of our teachers see both direct and indirect benefits to using SEL as a school focus (25% – direct benefits only).
  • 70% of our teachers teach the monthly SEL themes multiple times each week.

We also see the benefits of using SEL as a school focus in our conversations with our families and community. In learning conferences, informal conversations, or in structured meetings, the Zones and SEL language are commonly used among all members to describe personal growth and goals.

We will continue to monitor the formal and informal methods of checking our progress to adjust our work for the future.

7. Based on the evidence, does our inquiry require adjustment?

We continually adjust our inquiry to meet the needs of our students and staff. Our inquiry team meets regularly to discuss successes and areas of growth. Currently, we are examining and exploring:

  • developing a SEL tool library for teachers to experiment with different focus tools in their classrooms,
  • our monthly themes (adjusted to meet the immediate needs of our learners),
  • introducing school-wide breathing or yoga exercises at assemblies,
  • build our online resource database,
  • develop deeper integration of SEL strategies in upper-intermediate classrooms.