Mary Jane Shannon »

Mary Jane Shannon Elementary is a K-7 school in the Guildford area of Surrey, B.C., Canada, currently in its 59th year. MJ Shannon shares the school property with Guildford Park Secondary School. Our school population is currently 370 students. Our community is multi cultural and a variety of languages are spoken. About 12% of our school population has Aboriginal Ancestry.  Mary Jane Shannon has both a breakfast and  lunch program.   Our breakfast program feeds an average of 70 students every day and our lunch program serves 175 students daily. Attendance Matters is a program at MJS that supports student attendance by monitoring their absences and welcoming the students into our building before school. These students can have breakfast and play with friends before the school day begins. Other programs at Mary Jane Shannon include, Expressive Arts, Big Brothers, JumpStart, and Glide.   All of these programs support our students to be successful at school and in the community.

EJ David from Community Schools works with Terry Savage, getting breakfast to our students. 

Our learners come from a variety of experiences and backgrounds that we embrace and on which we build a sense of community. Our students are accepting and understanding of their differences and unique strengths. As a school community we acknowledge our differences while at the same time recognize the common threads that bind us together. At Mary Jane Shannon, we have been supporting the development of Social and Emotional skills including self regulation, problem solving and emotion management. 

Students at MJ Shannon love a challenge and are curious about their community and the world around them. They are motivated by the integration of technology into their every day lessons and challenges. 

,,, Students playing soccer with Dash the Robot and Robotics.

Students enjoy coding with Ozobots.

Over the past 3 years at MJS, we have had SEL as a focus in our school goals. This focus has centered around learning what social emotional learning is, how it can be integrated into classrooms to help increase academic focus and personal awareness as well as how we can use different tools and strategies to support SEL.

This year, 90% of our teachers have integrated a “Soft Start” to the beginning of their day as an element of SEL. “Soft Start” allows students to work in pairs or small groups on a variety of activities that focus on creative, cooperative learning and team building. “Soft Start” allows teachers time to connect with students, allows students to come in and integrate into the classroom at their own pace as well as a way for all students to wake up their brains and feel welcomed at the beginning of the day. Their anecdotal comments on this have been positive and they feel strongly that this integration of SEL to start the day with students has transformed the learning environment.

With this change, staff have noticed that students who are often late in the morning, are less anxious because they know they can join “Soft Start” without missing direct instruction. Staff have also observed a greater sense of engagement and community because students feel included and enjoy working with their peers at the beginning of the day. Students are given opportunities to connect with their teacher, with peers and this increases positive interactions, eases worries or concerns that they may have brought into school, and has given them the energy and time to get them ready for focused learning.

Focusing on self-regulations has also led to a decrease in referrals to the Office. With a shared understanding of how emotions work and what individuals need to help regulate their emotions, teachers and students have been able to advocate for “breaks” (a quick exercise break or a drink of water) or the use of tools (headphones, wiggle cushions or fidget tools) to help increase focus.

Staff and students at MJS have a greater understanding of what SEL is and why it is an important part of learning, personal awareness and functioning at school and in the community. With this foundation, we would like to deepen our learning and integrate SEL into all aspects of our school, so it is central to the physical environment, planning of curriculum, relationships with adults and peers.  This year, we are going to look at this with two areas of focus:

How can you provide choice throughout the lesson/theme/day?

How can you provide work on relationships throughout the lesson/theme/day?

We would like to strengthen our learning so that SEL becomes the ‘lens’ through which we view our students and how we support them to become whole productive, creative, curious and kind members of our school and greater community.

At MJS we have a group of staff members that meet regularly to discuss our school goal and the progress that we are making. We share ideas and experiences from the classroom.  In these meetings we are learning from each other. We share our learning out during staff meetings.

At the beginning of staff meetings staff members volunteer to share an activity or lesson that was particularly successful for their students Social Emotional Learning and we take time for table talk where staff can ask questions and share other ideas. 

What Professional Learning do we need?

We are at a point where we would like to find a book that we can read and regularly meet to discuss over lunch. We need to find something that will deepen our understanding of SEL and  help us to bring the SEL lens to all areas of our school including the office, the gym, the Library, etc.

Our School Goals team will continue to meet regularly and share ideas at staff meetings.