George Greenaway Elementary
OUR CONTEXT
We respectfully acknowledge that we work, learn, and play on the unceded, shared territories of the Coast Salish. We honour the q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), Semyome (Semiahmoo), and Kwantlen First Nations who have been 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 is important for truth and reconciliation.
George Greenaway Elementary where "everyone's best builds success". Our mission is to create a community school where students feel connected to each other, our staff and the greater school community. George Greenaway Elementary welcomes and supports all learners with a goal to help every child reach excellence in citizenship and academic achievement. We strive to support our students develop a “growth mindset” to promote effort and persistence in learning. Diversity and inclusion are central to the learning and growth at George Greenaway. Throughout the year, we recognize, learn about and celebrate National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, Orange Shirt Day, Black History Month, Pride Month, Vaisakhi, Cultural Appreciation Day, Pride month, and many more.
As a school community, we have focused our school goals over the past few years on the Social-Emotional Learning and well-being of our students and the importance of creating an accepting and inclusive community. This work has been evident in a great sense of community and belonging in our student population. This work has included Passion Projects which offered students an opportunity to sign up for different activities (such as cooking, ballet, woodwork, soccer, softball, perspective drawing and coding) to name a few!
These "passions" offered students the opportunity to connect with other Greenaway Eagles across our K-7 student population and meet and engage with other teachers and staff. These afternoons were great community building events that creating new and important connections across our school population.
Our students are learning to identify and ask for the things they need to get ready and be ready to learn. They find joy and fun in their learning and are building the skills and strategies they need to know how to handle problems and conflicts.
OUR LEARNERS
Over the last few years we have been focussing on increasing students' social emotional awareness and skills. We are now shifting our focus to how this impacts their acquisition of new tasks in mathematics. Specifically, we are looking at how having a growth mindset has impacted students' ability to stay focused on a numeracy problem to completion. Part of math is learning how to solve problems that you have never encountered before by applying what you know and using logic and reasoning to find a solution. Math is all around us and our hope is to help students see that mathematics will help them be able to tackle challenging and complex problems and situations and allow them to develop skills and strategies to learn necessary life skills.
Included in this application and learning process is the home-school connection, specifically we hosted a Family Math Night in February. This community event was designed to show and share learning with families and to support how numeracy concepts can be learned and reinforced at home through play and games!
We have also been engaging our learners by using manipulatives and loose parts to tells math stories.
Integrating math cross-curricularly; our Kindergarteners learn about ladybugs while learning to count to 10
Our learners can;
develop self-awareness skills to monitor emotions with greater understanding of the impact on well-being
develop increased capacity for school engagement, learning opportunities, and academic achievement
developing student ownership of their learning, including goal setting and communicating their learning more effectively
develop skills through practice, effort, and action
OUR FOCUS
We chose to focus on a group of intermediate learners. Our goal was to increase their overall engagement and mindset towards mathematics in order to help them find greater success and increase their achievement in numeracy. Our focus group of learners had indicated that mathematics was an area something that they could not be successful at. This was reflected in their conversation, in their self-assessment, and during instruction. Part of math is learning how to solve problems that you have never encountered before by applying what you know and using logic and reasoning to find a solution. Math is all around us and our hope is to help students see that mathematics will help them be able to tackle challenging and complex problems and situations and allow them to develop sills and strategies to learn necessary life skills.
Using the following analysis tool, students completed a self-assessment to rate their overall attitude towards mathematics. In September, the median answers fell in the 8-15 score of fixed-mindset.
Further journal writing and reflection revealed that an overwhelming number of our cohort focus group felt that they were “bad at math”. Furthermore, they were fearful of trying new math and were scared to make mistakes or fail. We have focused on promoting the development of a growth mindset around numeracy and mathematics for our students, and increase students’ achievement around numeracy and mathematical thinking we implemented a variety of learning experiences.
Our student learning goals / curricular competencies - Mathematics 6/7
Develop, demonstrate, and apply mathematical understanding through play, inquiry, and problem solving
Explain and justify mathematical ideas and decisions
Core competency connection:
Personal Awareness & Responsibility - I can identify my strengths and limits, find internal motivation, and act on opportunities for self-growth.
To highlight and demonstrate overall successes and gaps, we monitored the progress of the cohort with ongoing self-assessment using the following check in tool and compared this against student formative and summative assessments.
To promote the development of a growth mindset around numeracy and mathematics for our students, and increase students’ achievement around numeracy and mathematical thinking we implemented the following learning experiences:
Learning about our brains and how failure and mistakes are the key to learning and growing.
Normalizing mathematical thinking through an inquiry of Mathematicising Children’s Literature – Finding numeracy in “ordinary” books – math is all around us.
Getting students excited about math by creating activities that are creative, engaging, and open ended
Using hands-on mathematical learning and learning through play
Visualizing and reflecting on mathematical thinking and reasoning
Focusing on learning rather than achievement
Praising effort and strategies
OUR NEXT STEPS
To assess the overall success of how development of a growth mindset in mathematics directly impacts students' achievement; we utilized the original analysis tool and compared these results to the beginning of the year. In April, the median answers fell in the 24-31 score of growth mindset. This was further reflected in overall student achievement.
Evidence: Snapshot of Growth in Mindset
Our students are able to:
Communicate their mathematical thinking in multiple ways
Explain and justify their mathematical thinking and reasoning
Question, problem solve and reflect on their mathematical learning
Identify their limits and strengths and are motivated to ask for support when needed in order to increase their understanding
Overall Growth in Proficiency - Tracking 24 grade 6/7 students
Student Voice:
Evidence of learning: How has having a growth mindset helped you find success in math?
Evidence of learning: Explain and justify mathematical ideas and decisions
We found that students’ mindset and confidence directly affect their overall achievement in mathematics. Our next steps include:
Collaborating with classroom teachers to share our learning and increasing our cohort size
Using professional development days to share our strategies and learning experiences, which help foster a growth mindset
Continuing to encourage math play at home
working with parents to share information and strategies
Normalizing math play and exploration in our classrooms
Our goal is to impact and change more students’ views on mathematics and numeracy, thereby increasing our students’ overall success and mathematical understanding.
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.
