H.T. Thrift Elementary 24-25

As is stated in the H.T. Thrift Code of Conduct, we believe that all children have the right to learn in a safe, caring, inclusive and orderly environment. Our expectations are that students will maintain an attitude that is cooperative, courteous and respectful.  There are many ways to support the growth, development and learning of our children. Academic learning and social-emotional development are the keys to opening the door to our student’s growth. While SEL forms the basis of everything we do, it helps with increasing confidence in academics such as numeracy.

Helping our students become resilient and enabling them to face challenging situations is a goal that we look forward to continuing to develop.  Two of our Learner Support Team (LST) teachers gave an example of how they do this:

“Creating a safe and supportive learning environment is essential when working with young learners.  When students are supported by LST, it is important for the classroom teacher to understand each student's current stage in their learning journey to ensure they remain engaged and motivated.  As a result, student progress is carefully monitored and tracked in collaboration with the classroom teacher, with consistent encouragement provided to build confidence and promote growth.  When testing, we like to explain what is happening and why, which seems to put students at ease and allows more reliable results.  Achievements are regularly celebrated, reinforcing a positive and inclusive learning experience.  Instruction is delivered in a variety of formats to accommodate different learning styles, and Fridays are dedicated to phonics games as a fun way to reflect on the week’s learning.  This is especially valuable with our English Learners who must negotiate their turns and strategies using English.  The schedule remains flexible to respond to the emotional needs of the students.  Most importantly, it is continually emphasized that learning is an ongoing process and what may be unknown today will soon be understood, as long as we keep trying!”

Our students are presented daily with opportunities to practice and demonstrate their understanding of Social and Emotional learning skills and capabilities.  Our educating team provides our students with these essential skills to create success as they progress through the year.  To help understand the effectiveness of our approach, students were presented with an annual survey to convey their feelings and attitudes around all aspects of school, including cross-curricular academic success.  We are tracking the students by grade on a yearly basis.

Our students’ learning goals include:

Our learners can identify and describe strategies that promote mental well-being for self and others. 

Students were asked what helped them feel better when at school.  Here are some of the answers:

“I like that my class does DPA [Daily Physical Activity] every day. I look forward to getting exercise every day.” – J.S

“I am glad I can go to [the Integration Support Teacher’s] room or [the Child Care Worker’s] room whenever I need a break. Sometimes this really helps at Recess.” -D.H.

“I remember when the whole school tried calm breathing. Now my class does that all the time.” -B.D.

“Sometimes I need to hold my [sensory] toy. I am allowed to any time.” -A.B.

Our learners understand that learning requires exploration of one’s identity.

They can communicate pride in who they are and what they can do through images and language.  Below are two of the many examples of how H.T. Thrift supports this in our learners.

All H.T. Thrift students explore their and others’ cultures through the biennial World Expo Night. Each student is asked to have a conversation with their family and fill an information sheet about their background.  As well, each student is given a blank paper doll to colour and decorate in way that represented their culture. Each student’s information sheet and doll are represented in the gym.  During World Expo Night, all families are invited to share food, art, dance, music and/or other elements of their culture for the rest of the school.  Our students also place a pin on a map to represent where their family came from.

The principal aim of this event is to endow students with the capacity to understand who they are as a person and thoughtfully reflect on an appreciation of their and their peers’ background in a way that embodies the plurality within our society and also foster an environment of mutual understanding and respect for diversity amongst the student body.  

Through the use of a follow up survey with our cohort class, the evaluative standards applied to this process up to and including World Expo elucidated how a dive into one’s background demonstrates pride in these qualities while also encapsulating the unique essence of our community. After the last World Expo, this assessment determined that over 92% of our pupils exhibited a proficient level of understanding and empathy in this area.

Also, H.T. Thrift is a Downie and Wenjack Fund “Legacy School”.  This means we engage students in the work for reconciliation through awareness, education and connection.  Our students watch videos, read stories and discuss the impact of Residential Schools for Orange Shirt Day.  This leads to Secret Path Week, during which time we talk about Gord Downie's legacy (on the anniversary of his death) and how he became interested in the story of Chanie Wenjack.  We learn Chanie's story and listen to some of the music from ‘The Secret Path’, concentrating on the meaning of the lyrics.  Every second year or so we participate in the Walk for Wenjack to make our learning in the classroom seem more real.  Students are encouraged to think about how Chanie must have felt and start to develop a sense of empathy.  Our walks often involve fundraising efforts, and, in the spirit of reconciliACTION, we donate money to The Gord Downie and Chanie Wenjack fund.  These events are meaningful and inspirational for our students; leadership skills and a sense of community create a lasting impact.

For more information about what it means to be a Legacy School for the Downie and Wenjack Fund, check out this video:

https://downiewenjack.ca/our-work/legacy-schools-programs/ 

Our learners are developing their Social-Emotional Learning skills while building their academic resiliency and skills.  By doing so, the students have demonstrated an increased knowledge and improvement with the following three goals:

1) Our learners can demonstrate an understanding of the impact of personal decision-making on community well-being.

This project was designed to showcase the learning our students showed towards that goal.  The students were to: Create artistic works collaboratively and as an individual, using ideas inspired by imagination, inquiry, experimentation, and purposeful play

The teacher noticed that the students were struggling to play fairly during unstructured times such as Recess.  The class read books on the topic, such as social stories about friendship.  The class discussed strategies to problem-solve instead of retaliating.  The teacher gave a lesson on WITS (Walk away, Ignore, Tell someone, Seek help) and i-messages (focusing on how an action makes the student feel).  This cumulated with a project on anti-bullying and pro-friendship.  The number of negative issues decreased after all these lessons.

Working in Buddy Classes, our students had to plan and create a message to communicate a positive message for Anti-Bullying Day.  The criteria included demonstrating the ability to promote Social and Emotion Learning for students in our school while creating a poster that used bold letters for a title and a poem and/or drawing to promote their message.  It was a collaborative activity where students discussed responsible decision making, why it is important to be a good friend, obeying rules, showing empathy, being responsible, setting goals, listening to others, and respecting diverse perspectives to resolve conflicts effectively.  The students presented their posters to the class and explained the messaging.

          The bottom, left poster entitled “Treat People the Way you Want to be Treated” is an example of a proficient assignment.  Through the discussions and final products, we found that 90% of the projects were proficient and the students really enjoyed the activity. This was an effective way for students to create, present and demonstrate social awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision making and self-awareness.

2) Our learners can identify solutions to personal and social problems while evaluating the consequences of their actions.

This project was designed to showcase the learning our students showed towards that goal.  After the class did work on current events, the teacher led the class in discussions on the importance of thinking globally and not being self-centred.  This cumulated with the students doing a project in which they were to reflect on peace and its symbolism.

The learning intention was to integrate Indigenous studies into a Remembrance Day art activity.  A ‘dove’ is an international symbol of peace, while the ‘loon’ is an Indigenous symbol of peace.  Assessment was based on effort, completion of the project, and a set-criteria that included students researching how to say “peace” in as many languages as possible, describing their own ideas of peace, drawing their interpretations of peace, and adding a piece of their own culture into the project.

          All the students enjoyed this art activity and at least 90% were proficient. The final projects were very eye-catching.

3) Our learners can recognize their personal strengths and stretches to help take responsibility for using strategies to accomplish their goals.

This project, which is part of our SEL/HACE program, was designed to showcase the learning our students showed towards that goal.  This project is entitled “Compli-mats”.  The teacher’s intent was to get the students to continue thinking about themselves and who they really are.  To build up self-esteem, this included having peers find the positives about each student.  Also, we found that many students struggled to know or understand how to write or say a ‘positive compliment’.  Thus, the learning intention was to teach students positive words and how to compliment one another.

Each student was asked to list their most important values that describe their personality.  The rest of the class was asked to write a positive compliment about this person. Large group discussions and small group work were strategies used as ways to show and practice examples.  Assessment was based on their oral/group participation, as well as the ability to write 24 meaningful and positive compliments.  Overall, this was a very successful activity, and the students really enjoyed it.

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MOVING FORWARD:

The H.T. Thrift educating team has worked hard to utilize and improve their own SEL skills sets and cultural competencies in their teaching practice and professional development.  This is with the intent purpose of providing strength-based learning opportunities for our students.

Our students have started taking part in annual SEL-based surveys.  The initial school-wide survey in November, 2022 established a baseline of how our students did socially-emotionally and how that impacted their academic ability.  These surveys were repeated annually to track the growth of each grade group. The results were shown to our PAC.  The survey will continue to be done by grade-level to track how much our students are growing in each of the areas we are focusing on. 

As well, we have noticed a trend in our community.  As the diversity of our student-community has increased, we have also noticed an increased need to develop more empathy and deeper understanding of the differences that we celebrate.  This will be accomplished through ongoing events such as: World Expo Night, the Cultural Announcement of the Week, more diversity-respecting gatherings and ceremonies, expanding on Learning Commons’ celebration themes, First People in Residence Week, increased Spirit Days that tie into celebrations, and more.

Finally, our staff has identified a growing gap in numeracy skills in our students.  We are exploring strategies we can use to support the learners’ mindset and feelings about Math.  By focusing on a SEL-perspective, we will evaluate how much we can narrow the gap.  This included doing a Family Math Night.  This year, we have seen an improvement in students’ attitude towards numeracy in a cohort class.  Last school year, our cohort class’s students went from 63.9% to 67.6% positivity when asked how much they enjoyed math and felt about the subject.  This school year, our cohort class averaged 75.5% positivity (see Table 1).

Table 1:

As well, the cohort class’s proficiency in numeracy went from 62.1% in term 1 to 72.4% in term 3 (see Table 2).

Table 2:

While there are numerous factors that impact results, we believe that the work we have done in SEL has made a significant contribution to the improvement we have seen in the attitude towards Numeracy in this short time. We will continue to track the students’ attitudes towards Math through our surveys and see what impact our SEL-focus has on numeracy skills. As well, we have built our Math Playground, so all classes have access to fun math activities.