Panorama Park Elementary
OUR LEARNERS
Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an integral part of education and human development. It is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions, achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions. The “CASEL Wheel” is a framework that addresses five core social and emotional competencies. These are broad, interrelated areas that support learning and development (Social Awareness, Social Awareness, Self-Management, Responsible Decisions Making, Relationships Skills). Circling them are four key settings where students live and grow. Our hope is for a school and home community partnership. These skills are embedded in all subject areas in BC's curriculum. Below, we celebrate our learners' successes and strengths in the areas of:
- Self- Awareness
- Social Awareness
Self- Awareness
Our learners understand that learning requires exploration of one's identity.
Students were encouraged to explore the origin of their name. As a class, they discussed: who gave them their name, if it meant something special, if there was a cultural significance and the importance of pronouncing it correctly. Students value diversity and interact ethically with others. They are inclusive in their language and behaviour. Students recognize that everyone has something to contribute.
Our learners can calm themselves, focus their attention, and interact effectively with others by practicing calm down strategies.
Some of our primary classes have been focusing on different ways to calm their bodies. During circle time, they have talked about visualizing a happy place, looking for triggers when they feel sad or worried, and practicing various strategies in the classroom. They have practiced a range of breathing techniques such as breathing like a bee, whale, elephant, sniffing flowers, and so on. During their choice time, they have listened to soothing music and they have coloured peacefully in a calm environment. The class has practised asking for a break. Students can take a sensory walk in the hallway when they ask for a break. The classes have discussed many ways for being calm, and students choose the one that worked best for them.
In this video sample, one of our students identifies self-calming strategies that helps her focus and reduce stress.
Our learners are able to demonstrate an awareness of their emotions. Our learners understand learning takes time and patience.
Every week, one of our intermediate classes begins their week by learning a new feeling word by sharing orally, visually, and in written form. This sets us up to help practise the word throughout the week. The feeling words give them a vocabulary word bank to use when we they need to express their feeling clearly to help advocate for themselves, solve our problems inside and outside the classroom and developing our well-being.
Students have their own feeling word journal which they use to create their own personal feeling dictionary. Students share their personal connection to the word which helps them build their comprehension of the vocabulary and build an application for the future.
Our learners are aware of their external supports.
A SEL survey was administrated to our primary and intermediate students. With the survey, students rated their perception of school climate, adult support, and sense of belonging. It was intended as an informal measure for individual classroom teachers to invite feedback from students and reflect on areas for growth.
Findings:
- 89% of our primary students felt that they had friends at school
- 90% of our intermediate students felt they had friends at school
- 79% of our intermediate students felt that they work and play well with others who are different from them
- 81% primary students felt people care about each other in their class.
- 79% intermediate students felt they belong in their classroom and school community.
Social Awareness
Our learners are aware and respectful of others’ needs and feelings. They adjust their words and actions to care for their relationships.
This student's reflection "we help hearts around the world" captures the essence of being aware of others needs and feelings. The reflection demonstrates that our learners understand that learning is a reciprocal relationship.
Our learners can identify and develop an appreciation for different perspective on issues. Our students can show empathy, disagree respectfully and create space for others to use their voices.
Students develop connections and a sense of wellness within their class communities when given opportunities and strategies to navigate peer conflicts. During story time and literature circles, students participate in discussions by listening, asking questions and rephrasing what they have heard. They learn language that helps them to solve and to navigate peer conflicts in a respectful manner. Anchor charts are provided to help reinforce strategies.
In one of our intermediate classes, every Monday, a student shares a picture book or an excerpt from a book on SEL. They make connections, ask questions, visualize and infer. This help students think about how they can apply different strategies in their everyday life to become a responsible individual that contributes positively to their community, peers and environment. Students are able to empathize with others and appreciate their perspectives, resolve problems peacefully and develop healthy relationships.
Our learners can collaborate and develop their ideas through cooperation and commit to the needed roles and responsibilities as members of a group. Our students negotiate respectfully and follow through on a plan, strategies and actions as they share resources, time and space.
In teams, students designed and built a Rube Goldberg machine, going through the engineering process of identifying the problem, brainstorming for solutions, designing an improved prototype, building the new version and redesigning a product with improvement.
Student's reflection:
"The activity is all about making a machine that pulls down the screen.
The activity’s goal is pulling the screen down. The activity shows are learning by sharing ideas and talking to others."
Our learners can engage in informal and structured conversations in why they listen, contribute, develop an understanding and relationships, and learn to consider diverse perspectives. Our learners are able to communicate by receiving and presenting information.
In one of our kindergarten classes, the message for Pink Shirt Day was "together we can make a difference when we work together treat others with dignity and respect." On this day the class shared "The Smallest Girl in the Smallest Grade" by Justin Roberts. From this story the students easily connected to the fact that they are the smallest students in the smallest grade. Students were challenged to think about what they do to make their school a better place.
Students were asked to create a poster that showed others in the school others what they do as individuals to make their school a better place in the hopes that others will learn from our example. The children all hung their posters around the school to share their message with the school population.
Their message was then brought to life by using the Chatterpix app to turn themselves into a Panorama Park Love Monster. The “Love Monster” picture book series is by Rachel Bright. The series is all everyone needing love in their life and what things we can do to show love to others.
Our learners can demonstrate an understanding of others viewpoints. Our learners can demonstrate awareness and respect for individual difference and similarities.
Our learners make their thinking visible by using many different strategies. The classroom teacher read the story "The Feather" by Phil Cummings and Phil Lesnie in which a migrating bird observes a variety of human struggle in the form of war and a natural disaster. Both the bird and humans are searching for safety and comfort. The bird conveniently drops a single feather to each of the struggling characters offering hope and peace.
Students used their background knowledge and put the 'pieces of the puzzle' together to understand what the authors 'shows' us rather than 'tells' us to make meaning as they read.
Our learners are able to display empathy for others. Our learners can defend human rights and advocate for issues.
Students brought stories to life by adding details and description to create interesting and engaging stories. They used sequencing vocabulary (first, next, after that, then, later, finally) to create clear, organized writing. Students created stories with unique characters, setting, plot, problem and solution. They were visually able to represent a vibrant setting by using a green screen technology to bring their story 'to life.'
As this student tells her story, she demonstrates her ability to influence and entertain others by making sense of her experiences. She demonstrates social awareness by being able to emphasize with the characters in the story and being able to appreciate their perspectives.
Our learners are able to contribute to our community. They are aware of of the impact of their decisions, actions, and footprint.
Some of our kindergarten students are learning about plants; what they need and how they grow. Learning and taking care of plants sparks curiosity, and understanding of how food and other living things grow, cause and effect and responsibility.
Students in kindergarten to grade five discussed and brainstormed how to take care of our earth.
Student Reflection:
"I can help protect Turtle Island by riding my scooter to the park and turning off the water taps."
OUR FOCUS
Each and every day, among the variety of learning experiences presented to our learners, our educators focus on intentionally building connections to our students' cultures, languages, life experiences and stories to scaffold their learning. Our goal is to create trusting relationships and safe caring environments. Our educators get to know our learners by their stories, experiences, strengths, stretches, goals and curiosities. The focus is on self- awareness and social awareness.
Our team of educators provide our learners with these essential skills to set them up for success in today's rapidly changing world. To identify students’ overall strengths and areas for growth, we tracked social awareness in some of our intermediate cohorts of learners across subject areas. These cohorts include a diverse range of learners that are representative of our school’s population.
The SEL competencies we focused on in relation to “social awareness” include:
Our students' learning goals include:
- Recognizing how their actions (decisions and behaviour) affect the well- being of others
- Using conversational skills to identify, to develop and to understand the perspective of others
Below are examples of our students’ classroom experiences as they relate to social awareness.
Recognizing how their actions (decisions and behaviour) affect the well-being of others
Our students engaged in listening and reflecting to picture stories that focused on various themes. Strategic thinking techiniques were modelled that revolved around core anchor picture books. Students engaged in discussions, reflections and shared their thinking with their classmates. Students engaged in extensive hands-on activities that were designed to help them think more deeply, learn more widely, and develop a more powerful understanding of what it means to be a responsible and compassionate person.
For creating a stronger self, the focus was on a positive self-identity: naming stories, family, culture, grandparents, moral compass, feelings, mindfulness and hopes and dreams. Selected mentor picture books were read and discussions took place in classes to help build students deeper understanding of OTHERS. Most important in these lessons was the big idea of "Action – Reaction." According to Adrienne Gear, we have a choice how we act and our actions will always produce a reaction from others. Positive action = positive reaction; negative action = negative reaction. Students continued the discussion around friendship, friendship fix, inclusion, compassion, kindness, empathy, and community.
Using conversational skills to identify, to develop and to understand the perspective of others.
Our students engaged in listening circles as this provided an opportunity to teach empathy and provided an opportunity to hear (or read) different perspectives, and build on community. In a listening circle, students had a safe space to share their voices by responding to prompts. Examples of prompts may include: "What advice would you give yourself today and why."
This is an example of questions or prompts that can be discussed during listening circles.
OUR NEXT STEPS
Our learners are developing their SEL skills and capacities. In the focus area of social awareness, students demonstrated an increase in their ability to:
- Recognizing how their actions (decisions and behaviour) affect the well being of others
- Using conversational skills to identify, to develop and to understand the perspective of others
Recognizing how their actions (decisions and behaviour) affect the well -being of others
Students have been engaging in discussions and activities around anchor picture books. These stories and discussions help build students understanding around actions and the choices we make often impact our relationships with others. This is a social print, the imprint our actions leave on others close to us. The imprint can be positive or negative.
Students have been listening to stories that help them focus on the following:
- How do our actions affect others?
- What is an action that could have a positive impact on others?
- What is a negative action that could have a negative impact on others
- What does Action - Reaction mean?
Students engaged in a read aloud. Big Red Lollipop is told from the point of view of Rubina. Rubina receives her first invitation to a birthday party, and is overjoyed to go home and tell her family about it. She is met with disappointment when Ami tells her that in order for her to go to the birthday party, she has to bring her little sister, Sana.
Our learners engaged in a discussion around Rubina and Sana's actions and reactions. Together they created an understanding of the story. They reflected and made connections with both characters. The focus was on thinking and reflecting: "Would I act and react, in the same manner?" In pairs, our learners shared and discussed their thoughts.
When asked to reflect on this experience and comment on what they learned, over 95% of our cohort demonstrated they understand that an important part of social awareness is recognizing how their actions affect the well-being of others, in comparison to 10% in the fall.
Student Action - Reaction Reflection:
Using conversational skills to identify, to develop and to understand the perspective of others
Our students engaged in listening circles in small groups that were facilitated by the classroom teacher and our teacher librarian. The groups focused on the novel, "The Breadwinner." The story focused on the character, Parvana an 11-year-old girl who lived under Taliban rule in Afghanistan in 2001. After the wrongful arrest of her father, Parvana cut off her hair and dressed like a boy to support her family. Working alongside a friend, she soon discovered a new world of freedom and danger. Parvana embarked on an epic quest to find her father and reunite her family.
During these conversations, students showed empathy and focused on listening and acknowledging the different perspectives of their peers.
Student Explains the Process:
Student Reflection:
When asked to reflect on this experience and comment on what they learned, over 85% of our cohort demonstrated they were able to identify and understand the perspectives of others, in comparison to 30% in the fall.
Moving Forward
In consultation with our team and our above evidence, advancing our learners skillsets in self-awareness and social awareness have been effective. Our students have progressed in their understanding of themselves and how this connects to their interactions with their peers, our school, and the surrounding community. As we continue with this work, we will build on it in the following ways.
Self-Awareness
- Support students by teaching them greater self-awareness skills and strategies to effectively manage themselves and their learning (fidget tools, self-reg strategies, environmental supports).
- Increase opportunities for all students to reflect on their own self-awareness and continue to build an understanding of self by focusing on identifies (feelings, friendships, culture and community).
Social - Awareness
- Using conversational skills to identify, to develop and to understand the perspective of others during mathematical numbers talks (choral counting collections)
- Create more opportunities for students to take ownership of their learning to develop, to understand and to demonstrate global citizens (agents of change)
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.
