Cedar Hills »

Who  Are WE?!

Cedar Hills Elementary School is located in the City Central area of  Surrey.  Our current enrolment is 357 students in 16 divisions.  The student population is diverse with 137 (38%) students identified as ELL learners, 41 identified students with special needs, 10 Aboriginal students, and several children who are identified as refugees or recent immigrants to Canada.  Cedar Hills School is a designated inner-city school with a diverse student population from a variety of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.

Students and families of Cedar Hills Elementary School are proud of their cultural backgrounds, which they eagerly share and celebrate through events at the school.  Our families are quietly supportive of their children’s academic and creative achievements.  The many school events  illustrate the rich cultural diversity and pride that characterizes this community.  These include Vasaikhi and Diwali assemblies, drama shows, choir/school band participation, talent show, Chinese New Year celebration, Christmas program, Aboriginal Cultural Week, and many other cultural focus events.

 As many of the parents are at work when the school day finishes, we  offer  after-school community programmes each day of the week. Canada Scores (soccer, poetry), Jump Start  (sports, leadership), Hero’s Hockey, Drama Club, Choir, and school sports such as Volleyball, Basketball, and track.   During school lunches we offer Sticks & Stars/Girls in Power, Mosaic, and Lego Lunches, as well as Dream Camp (during Spring Break).  Students also receive support from Attendance Matters, (District supported breakfast program, offered every morning at 7:45 a.m) and the Lunch Program. A team of Grade 6/7 students participate eagerly in ‘Student Leadership’.  They assume various leadership roles and promote the guiding principles of  our Virtues Project.  Our focus within this project this year is Kindness and Inclusivity.  As we scan our students a staff, we have seen many trends within our student learners.

Student Strengths:

• Have learned to be resilient in the face of personal challenges
• Respond positively to praise and attention
• Parents care about their children
• Follow the Code of Conduct
• Helpful and polite
• Respect the teachers
• Beginning to set personal learning goals, and to self evaluate their progress

Student Challenges:

• Significant amount of families are struggling financially
• Student population turns over quickly
• Many learning needs
• Many students are working below grade appropriate level
• Students prefer to answer a question, and fill in the blank rather than personalize their own learning paths

Next Steps Based on observations in classrooms and school community teachers have gathered common threads of evidence of student learning through:

•  interactions with students
• assessing both the quality and content of student work,
•  end of year CSL self-assessment on the core competencies

Based on the above, teachers have created the following statements:

• Students are emerging in their ability to set personal learning goals, and to self evaluate their progress.
• Students need to have a stronger and truer understanding of the core competencies, and to be part of the assessment process.  
• Self-reflection needs to be strength based and ask open ended questions 
• Self -assessment needs to look at strengths  to focus on personal learning goals

As educators  we strive to engage students in taking ownership of their learning.   At Cedar Hills we see a need to focus on students gaining proficiency in their ability to set learning goals and to self evaluate their progress, particularly in the areas of the core competencies:

• Communication
• Creative and Critical Thinking
• Personal and Social awareness and responsibility

 With this in mind, the following school goal has emerged:

School Goal

To enhance student self-reflection of the core competencies through Indigenous Perspectives.

Within our staff there was an inquiry group in the previous year that focused on core competencies through literature.  This book collection was introduced to staff at our Growth Plan meeting last school year.  Teachers have had opportunities to explore these over the past year, and were enthusiastic about using the books in the classroom.   Over the year, this book collection was extended, with easy identification of the core competencies covered within.  Some collaborative time was created to create open ended lesson plans to reinforce student reflection of the Core Competencies.   

During the Growth Plan session in May 2019, teachers collaboratively reviewed the resource package and lesson plans written by author Margot Landahl, with the focus on the text The Six Cedar Trees.  It was agreed that the school will focus on this resource to focus student reflection of the core competencies through Indigenous perspectives.  

To assist with this, students/teachers would benefit from:

• acquiring copies of the book The Six Cedar Trees, along with accompanying poster/resource packages.
• professional days on Indigenous perspectives
• collaboration time between teachers to create open ended lesson plans through use of the above resources,  conversations, time to observe and present lessons together followed by debriefing sessions.
• whole staff presentation of student reflections  at staff meetings
• workshop with the author, Margot Landahl
• District support and resources on core competencies

Teachers are  invited to meet and collaborate to discuss how to collect data and implement ways  to support students in relation to our school goal.  We are striving to create structured and explicit  opportunities for students to explore the core competencies, and to show their progress in their reflections.

Teachers are working in grade groups, using small, focused inquiry approaches around the Core Competencies.   These include:

• Specifically front load lessons built around the animals and their relation to the core competencies through the indigenous perspective.  This can done through language, art, stories, journalling, etc.
• Students will inference what they can do , and create “I can … ” statements. 
• Students will be encouraged to connect the animal traits to their own self experiences.
• Students will co create criteria for what a good reflection is.  Students will create a baseline of reflections, which will be compared to end of term reflections, based on this criteria.
• Classes will participate in organizing and showcasing their reflections of the Six Cedar Trees and how it has impacted their personal reflections of the Core Competencies.