The staff, students, and parents have worked hard to build a positive, connected and engaged school environment where everyone feels a sense of belonging.
Our motto is "Everyone is Welcome in our Galaxy".
Staff and students have positive interpersonal relationships and a strong sense of belonging.
There is high student and staff engagement and connectedness. Collaboration and professional learning are important to staff.
There is a strong foundation of social and emotional learning.
At Goldstone Park we value…
COMMUNITY – belonging – helping others – family – friendship – happiness – humour – peace
We care about and contribute to the well-being of our community. We strive to make Goldstone Park a happy, peaceful place where all our students, staff, and families belong.
INCLUSION -attachment, acceptance, involvement, empathy
We promote and encourage inclusion through the use of the UDL framework. We respect strengths and stretches and provide students with the tools they need to be successful.
LEADERSHIP – integrity – authenticity – honesty – responsibility – loyalty – accountability
We have the courage to do the right thing. We are honest. We are accountable for our actions. We treat others the way we would like to be treated. We are all responsible for all our students.
TEAMWORK – collaboration – involvement – positive relationships and communication – respect
We support each other. We trust each other. We respect each other. We value everyone’s ideas and we enjoy working together for the benefit of all. We communicate our ideas in a positive, respectful way.
LEARNING – creativity – growth – excellence – knowledge – personal development – success
We try our best. We are committed to continuous improvement; we recognize all experiences as important learning opportunities. We are innovative and we welcome new ideas and creative thinking.
We asked our teachers the following;
1. What has captured your attention? And what is the difference you are trying to make for your learners?
2. What evidence are you using to inform your understanding about the degree to which learning has taken place?
3. What do you know about your indigenous learners in relation to this goal?
These are some of their responses:
1. What has captured your attention?
And what is the difference you are trying to make for your learners?
•Trying different writing styles through different lenses and genres.
•Trying out Making Books in the classroom, as professional development taking a 3 part session pro D on Making Books with Matt Glover and trying different suggestions
•Creating making books using different Genres- Fiction- free write in stories, and Non-fiction- How to Books, All About research books.
•Comparing our own written books to real text. Noticing what authors do and nurturing where students are at and giving them goals to work on during one on one conferences.
• Continue developing their positive personal and cultural identities through interactions with their peers.
• Build their confidence as writers to develop stories that are clear and interesting to their readers.
Developing their style
2. What evidence are you using to inform your understanding about the degree to which learning has taken place?
•Students give a sample of writing every term. Students are marked based on the “Quick Scale” with teacher understanding that the rubric is usually describing student achievement for for “March-April”.
•Students practice writing every day. When finished writing, students are expected to conference with the teacher every write. This is where we go through the writing together and creating Writing Goals. These are stored at the back of their journals so students can reference these goals before they begin every write.
•Students are practicing “Making Books” every Friday. What started as an every Friday practice, students are now wanting to create books during “Free Play” time. Students also conferring with teacher during the writing process.
When we compare writing samples across time, we notice learners incorporating more interesting vocabulary, similes, and transition words to engage the reader.
Student self-reflections-We invited students to draw, write, or use a combination to represent all the pieces of who they are. We revisited these reflections at the end of the inquiry process to showcase how our thinking has evolved and reflect on “Aha! This is who we really are!”
3. What do you know about your indigenous learners in relation to this goal?
Seems to have a lack in motivation for writing. Enjoys orally storytelling more than writing. Understanding how to support this process while keeping the motivation to share ideas.
There is little home support, therefore it is important for the student to be clear in what their learning goals are for themselves and what they need to work on independently.
*The Who Am I? inquiry offered our learners many opportunities to share about their cultural heritage and personal interests. " D" was an active participant in our explorations of identity when given the opportunity to reflect on his learning orally. He enjoyed sharing his ideas with his classmates and added more detailed, descriptive language to his reflections as the unit progressed. "D" continues to work with one-on-one support to increase the amount of his written input and to experiment with new vocabulary. With little home support, we strive to provide opportunities for "D" to reflect on his learning orally and to engage in more challenging literacy activities with the support of an intermediate buddy.
Not huge progress - maybe tries to spell on her own a bit more and sentence structure is a bit more defined.
Late for school most days and doesn’t read at home.
Her confidence is a bit higher than the beginning of the year.
Our focus was to continue to develop and use instructional strategies designed with a recognition that learning is influenced by: social and cultural context, background knowledge and understanding, and individual needs, interests and passions.
Every child matters and has a right to show their success …. our role is to ensure that every child has the opportunity to be successful.
Every child needs to be noticed and nurtured (notice, name what you see, and then nurture) so that they are celebrated for their success.
Looking at student writing across the grade levels-K-7 samples include all types of learners at various stages in their written expression abilities.
We focused on instructional strategies that could allow for students to:
Samples from each of the cohorts:
Kindergarten:
Explanation of Growth
In kindergarten, we begin the year by supporting children in learning how to make a picture that tells a story. We prompt their language as they tell us about their picture. "L" has always had so much to share with us, with great background knowledge and experiences, as well as drawing skills. In Term 2, she began to label her drawings with beginning and ending sounds. For example, for “roof” she would write, “RF”. Recently, this has expanded to writing full sentences. In the picture above, "L" wrote, “Mommy duck finds ducklings in the water.”
Proficiencies | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Extending |
Kindergarten | 2 | 5 | 11 | |
Grade 1 | 3 | 4 | 14 | |
Grade 2 | 3 | 5 | 11 | 2 |
Grade 3 | 3 | 8 | 9 | 1 |
Grade 4 | 3 | 9 | 17 | |
Grade 5 | 2 | 6 | 20 | |
Grade 6 | 7 | 8 | 11 | 1 |
Grade 7 | 2 | 8 | 18 |
We will continue with our "next steps" focus for another year as these opportunities are relevant across all curricular areas.
Along with continuing to provide students these opportunities, we want to engage parents by putting on evening workshops on the "how to" work with their child at home. (How to Read with you Child. How to use math games to reinforce concepts at home. How to incorporate writing into activities at home)