Guildford Park »

Guildford Park Secondary School is a grade 8 through 12 Secondary School in North Surrey, British Columbia. It is located just west of the Port Mann Bridge and Guildford Town Centre, in a suburban inner-city community close to Holly Park. Guildford Park Secondary has over 1200 students, and is proud of its cultural and ethnical diversity.

We have students from all over the world, as 51 different languages other than English are spoken by our students as their first language. Guildford Park Secondary takes pride in its strong tradition of academic excellence and career programs which prepare our students for post-secondary education and training. Many of our students go on to university or college, while others are enrolled in apprenticeships.

In addition, we also have very successful Fine Arts and Athletics programs, as well as a Y.E.S program, H.O.P.E. program, Growing Together program and Carpentry program. We are a school that believes “EVERYONE MATTERS” and have students that are……

•  Resilient, inclusive, loyal and have a strong sense of belonging  within the school community.
• Culturally and socioeconomically diverse.
• Seeking positive staff relationships/role models.
• Curious, inquisitive learners who thrive in hands on, relevant learning activities.

We are Guildford Park!

• Guildford Park Vandalism Costs October 2016  Lack of school vandalism, few incidents of violence and the high number of students that stay at the school until late afternoon/evening.
• After School Tutoring Program was attended by 7,398 students (2015-16 school year).  Students want to learn!
• 247 English Language Learners (20%)
• 114 Aboriginal Students (9%)

As the Guildford Park community proceeded through the inquiry process, many important and relative questions became possibilities for our inquiry.

1. How do we engage such a diverse group of learners?
2. How do we support meta-cognitive development in our students?
3. How to increase the relevancy of learning to such a diverse group?
4. How do we prepare students for the 21st century learning?
5. How can we teach executive functioning skills?
6. How do we bridge the gap between basic skill development and enrichment?
7. How can we collaborate with outside agencies to support our students?
8. What opportunities can we create or foster to promote relationships between staff and students?
9. How do we use students investment in the school community to inspire better course design?
10. How can we better integrate technology in a more meaningful & purposeful way?
11. How do we encourage/motivate students to meet the bar or exceed expectations?

We know that teachers and students have strong relationships and the number one indicator of success in students is their relationships with others.  “Students should have good mentors and peers to act as their “guardrails”, people to keep them on track as they accomplish their goals.” The school community felt that we should have a single all encompassing inquiry that could be promoted in all curricular areas and at all grade levels.  Through the process the above emphasized words seemed to resonate with many individuals as areas that should be included in our inquiry. With the Changing of the curriculum in British Columbia, focus around the core competencies along with literacy and numeracy foundations and essential content and concepts. Core competencies are sets of intellectual, personal, and social and emotional proficiencies that all students need to develop in order to engage in deep learning and life-long learning.  We believe we could center our inquiry around this transformation. Through the core and curricular competencies how do we create relevant, meaningful and engaging lessons to improve student learning and achievement?  

• Visits to other schools
• Collaborative teaching opportunities
• Professional development

• Teach different levels within the same subject
• Use more technology
• Build on the new curriculum
• Common, realistic expectations
• Cross curricular collaboration
• Provide exemplars of what can be done.  Celebrate the process.