Enver Creek Secondary 23-24
OUR CONTEXT
Enver Creek Secondary School is a robust community with students of diverse backgrounds, abilities and interests. The school has a strong sense of community and tradition. Cougar "PRIDE" is highly valued. Enver Creek students are caring, helpful, and want to do well for themselves and our community. They give back. They thrive when they are supported, given opportunities to learn and grow and feel respected. In turn, they give these same gifts back to others. When they feel valued their deep investment in the school and community is visible and powerful. Our students are engaged in their learning and demonstrate excellence in all forms of learning. Our students value and celebrate the diversity of their school community. They support a friendly and inclusive environment grounded in respect for each individual.
We have a strong school community with a variety of interests. Our students share their passions with others and work towards building strong connections and lasting friendships.
Students presenting their food challenge results to teachers, support staff, students and administrators.
Students in our Happily Enver After theatre company presenting their winter production.
Students at our Clubs Fair recruiting members for the Charities Club.
Students in our Senior Jazz Band performing at the Winter Showcase.
Students playing basketball during lunchtime open gym.
Students participating in our Grade 8 Day activities.
Students are engaged in their academic work, learning with dedicated teachers to build capacity in thinking, communicating and social and personal responsibility through various subjects.
OUR LEARNERS
Students at Enver Creek form a diverse community of learners. This rich diversity, which includes multiple ethnic and cultural backgrounds, brings together students and families from 83% non-English speaking households. Their relationships and culture, including how one identifies in terms of ethnicity, nationality, language(s), abilities, and religious or spiritual beliefs, help make up part of their identity. At Enver Creek, we take time to explore who they are, their relationship to others and their relationship to the greater community.
Students shared their cultural and racial equity celebrations with the school community to help others understand different viewpoints and engage in building better relationships and connections.
Throughout the year, Enver Creek students demonstrate their social awareness through participation in various ethnically diverse celebrations and activities organized by their classroom teachers, various clubs such as Multicultural Club, Student Council, Outreach Charities Club and other organizations, and advocates within our school.
Diwali and Vaisakhi are opportunities for our students to celebrate their South-Asian heritage and bring awareness to the school community. Our lunchtime celebrations continue to grow and demonstrate growth in fostering a sense of community.
In February, students participated in a school wide Black History Month celebration that included a lunchtime display of cultural dance, food tasting and informational displays to increase awareness and share in their cultural experience.
Students engaged in numerous activities to celebrate our connection to our Indigenous community and work towards Truth and Reconciliation.
Students in our TAG classes each decorated various plant seedlings as part of our orange shirt day activity, which represented our connection to our environment and provided an opportunity to give back. In order to help foster a greater understanding of Indigenous perspectives, this year’s activity was meant to encourage a stronger connection to the environment and appreciation for nature. The plants that were given back to the Earth in the fall could be enjoyed and viewed in the spring. The collaboration between our Indigenous students, our Garden Club and all of our TAG classes helped to improve communication and understanding of the relationship between ourselves and the environment.
Students participated in a number of district and school events this year to help increase the level of Indigenous student voice in the school and district. Our school had representatives from Grade 9-12 on the District Indigenous Leadership Council. Through their work, creating space for our Indigenous students became a priority. Students began to meet monthly with our Indigenous Graduation Advocate, Indigenous Youth Care Worker and Administration in order to provide space for dialogue, celebration and problem solving. Each month there was a different theme or activity, including beading, cedar flower making and brainstorming for school improvements.
OUR FOCUS
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is the 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, relationship skills and social awareness. These skills are embedded in all subject areas in BC's curriculum.
Our community is based on valuing diversity through building strong relationships based on an ethos of compassion and caring for one another. This year, we have focused on building student ability to interact respectfully with one another, take greater personal and social responsibility and develop stronger relationships through understanding of own’s identity and the collective identity of our school community. Learning cannot happen unless we have created opportunities in classrooms for learning and growth in the area of personal and social responsibility. In an effort to help our students develop empathy and create space for others to use their voices, we have continued our work on Anti-Racism and Racial Equity, grew our focus on the First People’s Principles of Learning, created more opportunities for Indigenous cultural activities and interwoven social emotional learning practices throughout our classrooms and community events.
Below, we celebrate our learners successes and strengths in the areas of:
Goal # 1:
Social Awareness:
Work towards better understanding the views of others. Through our work, how can we improve our understanding of others? How can we learn to take different perspectives and empathise even with people who are different than us? How can we improve our understanding of how the broader norms and systems around us influence how we develop and create a sense of belonging?
Showing understanding and empathy for others.
Goal # 2:
Relationship skills:
Work towards connecting and engaging effectively with others and form lasting friendships and connections. How can we improve our communication skills and work on communicating clearly? How can we work on solving problems together, managing conflict and disagreements and standing up for ourselves and the rights of others?
Forming positive relationships, working in teams, dealing effectively with conflict.
Students at Enver Creek demonstrated growth in an ability to feel empathy, a sense of social responsibility and respect for others.
Using our Core Competency reflections throughout the year, we were able to have students reflect on specific traits that we were targeting with our school goals. Students reported on whether or not these traits were a strength, a stretch or neither. Over the year, teachers worked on embedding strategies for students to help increase their sense of empathy, social responsibility and respect for others.
Grade 8 students specifically, saw growth in all three traits.
Trait | October 2023 | February 2024 | April 2024 |
Empathy | 63.5% | 65.9% | 66.1% |
Social Responsibility | 65.1% | 71% | 72% |
Respect for Others | 84.3% | 86.6% | 87.6% |
When students were asked to determine how easily they could identify and explain their values and beliefs to others, there was an increase to the average rating of 7 points.
When asked about how important it was to value diversity, demonstrate respectful and inclusive behaviors, and advocate for others, we saw an increase to the average rating of 5 points.
Students at Enver Creek were working on recognizing and appreciating different perspectives as key to both interpreting and creating better inter-personal communications.
Within our Humanities 8 classes, students focused on developing a sense of belonging and community within the classroom through increased collaboration. Part of the Humanities 8 curriculum includes assessing the significance of people, places, events, or developments at particular times and places, as well as explaining different perspectives on past or present people, places, issues or events. However, in order for students to be able to feel comfortable sharing their opinions and beliefs, they need to feel safe in their environment and trust in their peers.
Our humanities teachers have used current events as a marker for gauging the growth of students’ ability to demonstrate comfort and appreciation for different world views and perspectives. Students would work together with different partners each week analyzing and discussing different world events, and then sharing that with the class either in an oral or written passage. From September to May, teachers found that level of participation increased and that the level of analysis grew deeper. Assessments on average went from a developing level to proficient over the course of the year, with some students even reaching an extending level.
Students brought their understanding of how relationships and cultural contexts shape who they are to building relationships with others and increased their appreciation for diverse perspectives with our Racial Equity workshop.
Following last year’s anti-racism workshops for all grade 8 students, our humanities teachers continued to work through this learning with our new group of grade 8 students and an updated presentation on Racial Equity. This year, teachers started with a question about right-handed privilege to peak student interest, followed by an activity on understanding one’s own identity, and finishing off with a discussion on privilege and power. Older students were given the opportunity to share their perspectives on how they have been affected by those in the dominant culture, which helped to build empathy, understanding and provide an opportunity for student voice and agency.
Afterwards, students were provided an opportunity to create a presentation that highlighted who they were based on a variety of criteria including recognizing how language constructs personal, social, and cultural identity and working on constructing meaningful personal connections between self, text, and the world. The following example comes from a student that was uncomfortable at the beginning of the year sharing anything personal, but found a way to express themselves that was comfortable, thorough and creative, showing a proficient to extending level of understanding.
Outside of the humanities classroom, students came together to capture their thoughts on video, culminating in this piece of work that highlights the experiences of some of our students. This video will be used in the future as we continue this important learning.
Students used daily calming techniques to help regulate themselves in order to help foster greater communication and problem solving within their classrooms.
Students in our English classes work through different ethical dilemmas or thematic analysis by answering writing prompts in a regular journal. In an effort to increase their ability to exchange ideas and viewpoints to build shared understanding and extend thinking, students would practice their analytical skills on a regular basis. However, in order to promote an environment and state of emotional being conducive to effective writing and expression, our teachers would practice daily calming techniques that would help students self-regulate. These would include 5-minute soft starts and micro-breaks, silent meditation, use of manipulatives and board games as well as providing a welcoming atmosphere from the moment students entered the room. Throughout the semester, teachers found that students would be more focused, provide deeper analysis with an increase in the quantity of what was written. Teachers also found an increased interest in discussing prompts, whereby students would share their varying viewpoints and engage in meaningful conversation.
Students engaged in cultural activities within the classroom and greater community to help better their understanding of the view of others. Through these activities, they worked on building greater connections and friendships with their peers.
Students participated in our annual Languages Culture Fair where they shared their knowledge of French, Spanish, Punjabi cuisine, culture, and geography with students from other classes. One of the Big Ideas in languages is that our understanding of culture is influenced by the languages we speak and the communities with which we engage. These presentations gave them the opportunity to explore and share information about Francophone communities around the world through working on their collaboration, organization, and communication skills.
In June, we are collecting student reflections, pre and post fair to document their intercultural learning and understanding.
Our Grade 8 French students also participated in a West African drumming workshop as a way to explore and share information about connections between Indigenous communities and the French language communities, as well as exploring Francophone cultures through creative works.
Students were asked questions regarding the promotion of cultural activities and their effect on cultural and diverse understanding. Below are some of the student responses:
How do you think Fana Soro’s presentation contributed to your understanding of cultural diversity? | In what ways do you think cultural workshops like this one can promote understanding and acceptance among people from different backgrounds? | What steps can you take to ensure that you continue learning about and appreciating different cultures even after the workshop is over? |
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Our Punjabi 10 class engaged in an exploration of Punjabi people and the local community. In an effort to better understand the views of others and engage effectively with others to form lasting connections, students explored the rich history of Punjabi soldiers in the British Indian Army. To deepen their understanding and personal connection, they were encouraged to explore their own family histories for any military ties. Students shared stories of ancestral valor and sacrifice, fostering empathy and respect for diverse experiences. As a summative activity, students penned heartfelt letters to featured Punjabi soldiers, skillfully weaving in Punjabi language elements. Facilitating this exchange not only honed language skills but also fostered a profound sense of appreciation and empathy for the soldier's legacy and the sacrifices of countless others like him.
Students took it upon themselves to help students learning English have a safe place to go at lunch.
Senior students created a lunchtime space for students to meet twice a week, build connections and friendships and work towards better understanding the views of others. They came together with one of our Counselors to create Enver Creek’s Conversation Cafe Club, which met twice a week at lunchtime. They had noticed that many of our ELL students were sitting in the Counseling area, not talking, but simply eating lunch. This provided students that were struggling with learning English a safe place to meet other students, converse, play some games, work on homework and exchange ideas and viewpoints to build shared understanding.
Starting with only 4 students, the club has grown to over 20 since December. Students that were once invited to join the club because they were sitting alone by themselves have now found friend groups, made connections and provided feedback to the senior students on how well things are going.
OUR NEXT STEPS
Connect next steps to direct evidence
What is your hunch to where to go next
What does the data tell us?
Present data to staff, work further with Department Leaders and have conversations, survey and make decisions moving forward.
Continue data collection and students move from grade to grade.
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.
