Dr FD Sinclair Elementary 23-24
OUR CONTEXT
We respectfully acknowledge that our school resides on the traditional, unceded and shared territories of Coast Salish peoples. The Katzie, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo First Nation: the stewards of this land since time immemorial. We highlight this history knowing that relationships and partnerships based on respect with the Indigenous peoples of this land are important for truth and reconciliation.
Dr. F.D. Sinclair Elementary School is a reflection of our community, in which we recognize, honor and celebrate diversity. It includes multiple generations of learners and their supportive families, from young children to great grandparents. Our students are proud to be part of our community. They thrive when given opportunities to celebrate our unity, but are also rightly proud of their own cultural identities. We are a rich blend of cultures, languages and backgrounds, that all intersect in one small neighborhood in Surrey. Other than English, Punjabi is the most common language spoken by Sinclair families, but other common languages include Hindi, Urdu, Pashto and other East-Asian languages. Nearly all of our learners speak two or more languages and are adept at navigating rich multicultural environments.
Since the school’s opening in 1956, there has been a rich history of learning and opportunity at Dr. F.D. Sinclair. Our school values derive from the shared values of our learners, teachers and administration and are based on continual learning, honesty, empathy and kindness. Our school mural, created by Charlene Johnny, represents these values. The mural features a traditional Coast Salish weaving blanket pattern with a mountain range representing our local environment and two eagles embodying the themes of family. The sun in our mural represents life force, positivity and knowledge and overall brightness that exists when families and people come together.
At Dr. F.D. Sinclair Elementary, students and staff live these values through a variety of learning opportunities that encourage us to see the world from various perspectives. We participate in First Peoples in Residence Week, National Truth and Reconciliation Day, Black History Month, Pink Shirt Day and cultural celebrations such as Diwali, Eid, and Lunar New Year. These opportunities play a pivotal role in broadening the scope of our students’ personal and social circles of care.
Students participated in Metis dot art, painted to resemble beadwork.
Learners are also able to develop by participating in various service and sports clubs, including the School-wide athletics, the Junior Tech Team and Library Leadership. Many of our upper intermediate learners support the F.D. Sinclair community through the Leadership Program, which includes four strands of service: Spirit (School-Wide Events), Communication (Assemblies and Announcements), Environment (Gardening) and Big Buddies groups.
We also embrace our partnership with Backpack Buddies, a program to provide students and families with food on the weekends until students are back at school. Additionally, Dr. F.D. Sinclair offers after school extra-curricular learning opportunities provided by community partners. This programming focuses on physical literacy, community action, and the arts.
OUR LEARNERS
Our learners - excited, committed and on the journey!
Dr. F.D. Sinclair Our is home to over 390 diverse learners. They are engaged by story and love to create and share their own! They are, therefore, eager to learn through literacy and integrated learning approaches (i.e., literacy, social studies, and Arts Education). According to Drake and Reid, “literacy, no longer confined to language arts, is taught across the curriculum. Connecting curriculum to the real world fosters greater use of non-fiction materials, encourages use of communication technology, and increases relevancy of reading and writing activities” (Drake & Reid, 2010).
Strengthening the connections between our learners’ literacy practice and their “real worlds” requires that staff and administration create an environment that fosters Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). SEL is a process that supports adults, youth, and children in developing skills that are necessary for school, work, and life. This includes self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationships skills, and social awareness.
As our staff and administration have prioritized these two areas of learning, F.D. Sinclair has chosen to focus this year’s student learning plan on the development of social awareness through literacy.
Our goal focuses on the capacity of literacy, and integrated learning approaches, to develop social awareness in our learners. Our learners are largely enthusiastic about literacy, and enjoy sharing ideas and transforming their thinking through intentional sequences of learning. Literacy instruction allows learners to seek out information, explore subjects in-depth and gain a deeper understanding of the world around them. Social awareness, when integrated into curricular learning, allows them to empathize with others from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts. This combination enhances learning, as learners both understand themselves more deeply and are able to connect emotionally to the experiences and perspectives of others.
A Few Snapshots of Our Focus This Year
"Let's Make the World Better!"
Description: After completing a unit on the design process, intermediate learners read and watched nonfiction accounts of people facing various physical challenges. In groups, they discussed each person’s situation and imagined everyday obstacles that person would face. They then brainstormed, designed and collaboratively created prototype inventions to help.
Curricular Competency: Our learners can use appropriate strategies to comprehend written, oral, and visual texts, guide inquiry, and extend thinking.
"Our Town"
After reading about and discussing various community occupations, early primary learners imaginatively took on the roles of various occupations and built a mini-town that the firefighters, postal workers, etc. would enjoy.
Curricular Competency: Our learners can making meaningful personal connections between learners, texts, and the world.
"The Book Club"
Over the year, a class of senior intermediate students participated in a discussion-based lit-circle group known as “Book Club”. The novels read were chosen to expose learners to the experiences of characters outside of their ordinary circles of experience. The themes dealt with included body image, culture shock, war, disability and racism. To prepare for book club discussion, students made notes as they read, inserting a sticky note each time they had a connection to the book or experienced an empathic insight.
Curricular Competency: Our learners can exchange ideas and viewpoints to build shared understanding and extend thinking.
OUR FOCUS
“Where will we concentrate our energies in order to make a big and lasting difference for our learners?” (Kaser & Halbert, 2017).
The CASEL Framework (CASEL, 2022)
Every day in our school, learners are provided with a variety of learning experiences, each focusing on thinking, reading, writing, and communicating through all curricular areas. Our belief is that focusing on making meaningful connections through literacy will not only sharpen learners’ literacy skills in all areas, but will develop their capacity to empathize with others. We are supported in this belief by the work of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and its framework, which proposes that social awareness and empathy can be deepened through stories. As a staff, our focus is on building these strong literacy foundations that are fundamental for students’ successful participation in the world.
Our students’ learning goals include:
- Making meaningful personal connections between themselves, texts, and the world
- Considering different purposes, audiences, and perspectives in exploring texts
- Achieving shared understanding and extended thinking through the exchange of ideas and viewpoints
To identify learners’ strengths and areas for growth in relation to these goals, teachers worked with a single class - a diverse cohort of representative intermediate learners. During that time, learners engaged with a variety of tasks designed to use texts, both fiction and nonfiction, as a springboard to social awareness and empathy.
In ADST, they read picture books and news articles about people around the world who have overcome problems using ingenuity and the design process.
“One Plastic Bag” “A Liter of Light”
In response, learners’ interviewed a family member about the daily challenges they face, summarized their results and designed a helpful invention.
In Language Arts, learners in reading groups read an assortment of picture books for several weeks. The books varied in reading level and focus of interest, but all featured characters who stand apart from a dominant group because of their “otherness”, i.e. citizenship status, personal loss, religion, bullying, race, gender or health status.
Students worked with the texts and developed their thinking around the character’s experiences, made links to similar situations in their lives and finally wrote empathetic responses in role as a capstone.
OUR NEXT STEPS
Language from the provincial assessment scales was used to identify successes and remaining challenges. The assessment tasks and tools suggest that there was a noted improvement for many students in the sample cohort in relation to the literacy goals. We see that instruction and practice in making connections in ELA is associated with an increase in social awareness and empathy in our cohort of students. These goals included:
making meaningful personal connections between learners, texts, and the world.
creating shared understanding and extended thinking through the exchange of ideas and viewpoints.
considering different purposes, audiences, and perspectives in exploring texts.
Student learning evidence is gathered in a variety of ways. For example, in one method, student strengths and challenges in relation to writing samples are identified and comments are provided. The following assessment is based on writing conferences, conversations and student work:
As measured against baseline, 76% of students in the cohort improved in their ability to:
- make at least 2 meaningful connections between a particular story and their lives,
- “write in role” about a story, adopting a character’s perspective
- extend their thinking from the text to the real world by designing and building an invention.
There remains 24% of the cohort who require further attention and support with these goals.
Evidence Samples:
Learner demonstrating the ability to assume others' perspectives by writing in role.
Learner demonstrating ability to assume others' perspectives by writing in role.
Learner demonstrating the ability to extend thinking by interviewing someone, identifying a daily challenge and designing an invention to help.
Moving Forward
Evidence of student learning demonstrates that a focus on improving specific ELA competencies can provide more in-depth learning experiences and transform student thinking. Our teachers will continue to innovate in this area and track our learners' further progress of these learning goals:
making meaningful personal connections between myself, texts, and the world.
creating shared understanding and extended thinking through the exchange of ideas and viewpoints.
considering different purposes, audiences, and perspectives in exploring texts.
As a school community, we are committed to creating equitable, supportive, and caring learning environments where all children can thrive and reach their full potential. We will continue to monitor and adjust our student learning plan as our learners, staff and community change over time. By identifying our goals, identifying what is working and what needs to be improved; evaluating the impact of our plan; and using this feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning – we will continue to support learners in developing literacy proficiencies and social awareness skills that will prepare them for future success.
Surrey Schools
Formed in 1906, the Surrey School District currently has the largest student enrolment in British Columbia and is one of the few growing districts in the province. It is governed by a publicly elected board of seven trustees.
The district serves the cities of Surrey and White Rock and the rural area of Barnston Island.
