Panorama Ridge Secondary
OUR CONTEXT
École Panorama Ridge Secondary opened its doors in 2006 to an ever growing neighbourhood. École Panorama Ridge Secondary strives to provide a safe, diverse, and collaborative community which nurtures student’s growth as lifelong learners, future leaders, and respectful, global citizens by providing opportunities for intellectual, artistic, technological, and athletic expression. Offering both a French Immersion and English language program, students benefit from rigorous academics along with first-class programs in music, arts, and athletics. As such, Panorama Ridge boasts Loran scholars, Provincial Champions for a variety of athletics including Soccer, Volleyball, Kabbadi, Ball Hockey, Basketball, and Wrestling, excellence in Performing Arts, and an outstanding Band Program. In addition, Equity and Inclusion work is a vital part of the school community. Recently, a Social Justice committee was established at the school with a focus on staff collaborations and students learning and advocating.
School and Community
Panorama Ridge students are committed to bettering community through activities such as advocacy work, service projects, and fundraisers. Our student groups, including Interac, the GSA, the Social Justice Club, Gender Equity Club, and the Animal Humane Society, raised funds and their voices for oppressed groups and/or those in need. In addition, PR students participated in Model United Nations to build leadership skills, debate and work together to solve current global issues. These students stepped into the roles of world leaders, representing countries from around the globe. Within the school, Grade 12 students completed Capstone Projects highlighting their passions and ideas for future plans, our Leadership classes steered numerous events and activities designed to build community and spirit, and our Co-op program perfectly entwined academic and real world experiences that influenced the growth for our students.
Academics
École Panorama Ridge offers academic programs through either French Immersion or English Language. French Immersion is an intensive second language acquisition program. Students study in French while following the regular B.C. Curriculum; French Immersion is available to all students. Surrey French Immersion programs are provided in schools which also offer the regular English program. In both programs, Panorama Ridge students have consistently demonstrated strong performances in their courses, excelling in a variety of programs including Technology Education, Business Education, International Languages, Math, Science, English, and Social Studies. In addition, many senior students enroll in AP courses such as English Literature, Calculus, and Biology, and all senior level students complete extensive Capstone projects for graduation. Many scholarships have been awarded to our students within all of these programs. A number of Panorama Ridge students have also been recipients of provincial and/or national scholarships.
Arts
Our Arts programs including Theatre, Dance, Music, and Art offer students a variety opportunities and choice to explore their passions and hone their skills. Numerous performances are enjoyed by the school community over the year, as these creative students share their talents.
Athletics
Panorama Ridge's coaches and sponsors support a bevy of teams and athletes. Students of varying skills levels compete in a variety of fields including Soccer, Field Hockey, Volleyball, Basketball, Badminton, Rugby, Wrestling, \X-Country, Track & Field, Kabaddi, Ball Hockey, and Ice Hockey. Many of our teams have accomplished district, provincial, and national championships while ALL of our teams have benefitted from team building, practicing integrity/commitment/hard work, and having fun!
OUR LEARNERS
LEARNING THAT MATTERS:
In a seemingly ever-changing world, the ability to know yourself, experience your place and discover your voice is vital. At Panorama Ridge, our students are engaged in this work through multi-disciplinary avenues.
Our student learning plan is focused on equipping our learners with the following skills:
These competencies, derived from the B.C. English and Social Studies curriculum, are essential in our pursuit of equipping our students with the reflective capacities that are necessary for a meaningful and engaged life in today's world. |
WHERE WE SEE THESE GOALS IN ACTION:
Throughout the school year, students have engaged in deep learning around these curricular competencies both inside classrooms and in the broader school community.
Goal #1: Students can explore the significance of people, places, events, and developments within their respective historical and cultural contexts |
“Representation is important because it helps us understand where we come from and who we are. ” - Grade 8 Student
Students and staff worked together to celebrate and highlight Sikh Heritage Month in April. Students organized a vaisakhi celebration that included Bhangra, food brought in by local restaurants, art displays and informative posters.
"I like it when the teachers celebrate Indian culture. They can make a connection to my culture. They understand my life at home." - Grade 10 student
Modern Languages students explored and celebrated Día De Los Muertos with music and food, along with creating an artistic and informative display for the hallway.
Every year the "One Book, One Ridge" program selects a book that all students and staff are invited to read. This year, "Patron Saints of Nothing" was selected by students. This book was described as "a coming-of-age story about grief, guilt, and the risks a Filipino-American teenager takes to uncover the truth about his cousin's murder.” Students read the book and participated in small group book clubs throughout the school year. These discussions gave students opportunities to engage in dialogue about complex cultural issues, including the experience of immigration, family conflict and loss.
Goal #2: Students can recognize and evaluate the role of their own personal, social, and cultural contexts, values, and perspectives |
Every month, Indigenous students at Panorama Ridge and their friends were invited to "Fry-yay", a cheeseburger and fries lunch. Along with a cheeseburger and fries, these lunches provided Indigenous students with an opportunity to gather together and form meaningful connections and friendships. Often times, students from our feeder elementary schools would join.
A key element of these lunches was that students heard from Lyle, the Indigenous Child and Youth Care Worker at Panorama, that were focused on the seven sacred teachings. These gatherings were an important rhythm in the life of the school year and helped students explore their personal connections to their culture and community.
Students learned about the importance of woodcarving as a vibrant cultural art form from a guest speaker from the Surrey School District Indigenous Department.
In Humanities 8, students explored and evaluated the role of their own personal and cultural contexts as they examined how Indigenous cultural identities are often appropriated by non-Indigenous people. Through this work, students developed their understanding of how their own cultural identities interact with and shape their lived experiences.
Goal #3: Students can build and maintain diverse, positive peer and intergenerational relationships. |
Grade 8 students gathered for Grade 8 Day in September. Students heard about resilience and establishing healthy social-emotional habits from guest speaker Will Loftus. During the day, students connected with each other and built positive connections with key members of school staff, including counsellors, safe school liaisons, administrators, and youth care workers.
Our annual Indigenous Families Dinner was held this Spring. This event is organized by a team of students and teachers that wanted to bring together teach. Indigenous families from all of our feeder elementary schools and from Panorama Ridge gathered together at the school to share a meal and connect with each other. Students that attended were able to engage in meaningful conversations with other Indigenous students and parents.
“In terms of representing everyone, things are getting better – culture and sexuality are represented across the school. The pride celebrations at the school are really important. Looking at it from a male perspective, men are usually supposed to not be fragile or talk about emotions as much. Now everyone is more open to talk and share their feelings.” - Grade 8 Student
During the school year, the Gender & Equity Club and GSA Club work to promote an inclusive and accepting culture around the school. This June, these clubs hosted a Pride Gallery Walk in which students from each department of the school worked to create displays that highlighted how LGBTQ2S individuals have contributed to a variety of disciplines.
In reflecting on their experiences, a number of students that attended the event noted how important it was for the school to highlight the experiences of historically marginalized groups.
“We learned to value how our words can impact other people – how they can make someone happy or sad. Our words can help a group of people or put a group of people down.” - Grade 8 Student
OUR FOCUS
SPECIFIC AND TARGETED GOALS:
Our focus this year was on equipping our students with the reflective capacities that are necessary for a meaningful and engaged life in today's world. To that end, we focused our attention on the following three goals with a targeted cohort of students:
Goal #1 | Students can explore the significance of people, places, events, and developments within their respective historical and cultural contexts |
Goal #2 | Students can recognize and evaluate the role of their own personal, social, and cultural contexts, values, and perspectives |
Goal #3 | Students can build and maintain diverse, positive peer and intergenerational relationships. |
TAILORED LEARNING EXPERIENCES:
Teachers collaborated together to create learning experiences that were centred around the goals of our student learning plan. To that end, a group of English and Social Studies teachers worked together on a unit that explored the concept of cultural identity, using the CBC documentary “The Pretendians” to help students understand their own cultural identity. This documentary examines sudden the surge of non-Indigenous people falsely claiming Indigenous identity.
Students explored this unit through small group and class discussions, personal reflections, independent reading, and guided viewing questions.
Students also frequently used online forms to self-assess their progress toward learning targets. This allowed teachers and students to keep track of their progress over time and reflect on areas for future growth.
At the end of the unit students demonstrated their learning in a written response that explored their personal experiences and beliefs, along with their response to the challenges and questions raised by the documentary.
OUR NEXT STEPS
WHERE WE ARE ARRIVING:
Our goal this year was to see students develop in their capacity for exploring their personal and cultural identities, rooted in an awareness of both the past and present. This was done through meaningful learning centred around the English and Social Studies curricula.
ASSESSMENT OF CURRICULAR COMPETENCIES: |
In order to evaluate our progress toward our learning goal, teachers assessed students on the same two English and Social Studies curricular competencies throughout the semester, allowing us to see student progress over time. In both cases, students in the learning cohort demonstrated growth over time.
ENGLISH:
The results of the English assessments showed that the number students in the learning cohort demonstrating "Proficient" or "Extending" increased by 11.2%.
Student Achievement: February 2023
Student Achievement: June 2023
SOCIAL STUDIES
The results of the Social Studies assessments showed that the number students in the learning cohort demonstrating "Proficient" or "Extending" increased by 9.5%.
Student Achievement: February 2023
Student Achievement: June 2023
THE STORY OF OUR LEARNING:
At the end of the school year we asked our learning cohort to respond to a simple prompt to help them reflect on their learning: tell us about how you've learned about the importance of cultural and personal identity this year.
Students in the cohort were able to reflect on the important learning that took place in their classrooms.
“One thing we learned is that it’s important to consider things from other perspectives – even if you think you have a good idea of what someone else thinks, you might not.”
“We learned to value how our words can impact other people – how they can make someone happy or sad. Our words can help a group of people or put a group of people down.”
“In our unit on Indigenous art I realized that it’s really easy to pretend you’re something that you’re not and end up taking something that’s not yours. It's important to remember how other people view things.”
During the interviews at the end of the school year one student noted that she felt that the unit on cultural identity was important in helping her to examine her own relationship with her cultural origins and her parents experience as immigrants. This comment underscores the importance of the meaningful work that students and teachers engaged in this year.
STUDENT WORK:
Students across the cohort produced written reflections that demonstrated increasingly sophisticated and insightful commentary on the importance of honouring cultural identity.
Our Next Steps:
In the 2023/2024 school year we will continue to focus on enhancing student learning by pursuing growth in our three goals for a second year. Building on the success we celebrated this year, we will extend our cohort to include a greater number of students and teachers in the coming school year.
The following goals remain a priority at Panorama Ridge:
Goal #1 | Students can explore the significance of people, places, events, and developments within their respective historical and cultural contexts |
Goal #2 | Students can recognize and evaluate the role of their own personal, social, and cultural contexts, values, and perspectives |
Goal #3 | Students can build and maintain diverse, positive peer and intergenerational relationships. |
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.
