Regent Road Elementary 22-23

Social and Emotional Learning is the process through which people acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions; set and achieve goals; demonstrate empathy for other; establish and maintain positive relationships; and make effective decisions. All of this involves self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making.

Our focus is to integrate SEL competencies into academic experiences such as the following learning competencies :

• Use language to identify, create, and share ideas, feelings, opinions, and preferences (Kindergarten English Language Arts)
• Create stories and other texts to deepen awareness of self, family, and community (Kindergarten Language Arts)
• Exchange ideas and viewpoints to build shared understanding and extend thinking (Grade 6 English Language Arts)
• Exchange ideas and perspectives to build shared understanding (Grade 3 English Language Arts)
• Stories and other texts help us learn about ourselves, our families, and our communities (Language Arts, Grade 3)

The goal is for students to use SEL strategies in their everyday learning and lives. Using these strategies will allow students to self-regulate, use executive functioning and know their own personal needs. Students from Kindergarten, Grade 3 and Grade 6 make up the group of students who will provide the evidence of learning that supports this goal. Students are working within a variety of contexts: direct SEL instruction, literature, videos, class discussions, writing experiences and group work.   

For many students, SEL involves gaining access to emotional and social supports beyond the classroom, according to their personal needs. It also involves opportunities for students to express themselves, to learn in the ways that are relevant to their families and communities, and use their creative and intellectual gifts.

School cultures are nurtured and developed through shared experiences and celebrations. Effective social emotional learning helps to contribute to the positive climate of a school. During Regent Road's first year, we have begun the work of creating opportunities for students to achieve and celebrate success. This is the foundational work of creating Regent Road’s identity as a learning organization.

Our learners are developing their SEL skills to assist in their acquisition of literacy skills. The skills that our students are developing are contributing to success in their ability to express themselves and make sense of the world around them. The table below illustrates that our while many of our learners are demonstrating literacy skills at a proficient level or above, more focus is needed to ensure that all of our learners are reaching their full potential. At the conclusion of the 2022/2023 school year, 62.5% of our students were proficient or exceeding expectations for reading with similar numbers were demonstrated through writing assessments (58.9%). Student assessments indicated strong oral language skills for our students with 75.4% demonstrating proficiency and a further 1.8% showing that their oral literacy skills were exceeding expectations. This information informs our practice and compels us to focus further on the reading and written components of literacy.

Snapshot of student proficiency in Literacy and Numeracy

After collecting and analysing student achievement, we have seen an improvement in student understanding as indicated by student self-assessment and teacher assessment.

We are seeing students develop further strategies to self-regulate which is resulting in improved literacy acquisition.

A continued focus on utilizing social-emotional strategies will aid our students who are trying to articulate their understanding and further develop their ability to express themselves and increase their comprehension skills.

Our next steps are to extend the focus of literacy acquisition using a variety of strategies.  We will do this by engaging staff in professional development opportunities, investing in more resources, and reaching out to the literacy district helping teacher to explore further strategies in improving student learning opportunities in literacy.