Walnut Road Elementary
OUR LEARNERS
Social-Emotional Learning
Social and Emotional Learning has been a significant student learning focus at Walnut Road for many years. Problem-solving peaceful solutions to problems, showing empathy, and kindness, managing emotions, and setting goals have been embedded into the lives of students.
At Walnut Road we know that learning is social, emotional, and academic. While schools in the past were known primarily for academics, we now know that the brain’s capacity develops most fully when children feel emotionally and physically safe; and when they feel connected, engaged, and challenged.
Positive relationships, including trust in the school’s adults, and positive emotions, such as interest and excitement, open up the mind to learning. Negative emotions, such as fear of failure, anxiety, and self-doubt, reduce the capacity of the brain to process information and learn. Children can build skills and awareness to work with emotions in themselves and their relationships.
Developing students’ social-emotional skills teach them how to manage stress, while also boosting social skills like collaboration and empathy. In this way, social-emotional skills involve developing greater awareness of oneself and others. Walnut Road teaches these skills explicitly through our social-emotional learning lessons and programs.
In order to create this positive climate and student wellness at Walnut Road, our learners know and understand what it means to be a Walnut Road Hawk. 
Our learners develop in an environment that is sensitive and responsive to individual needs. Beginning the school day in a warm, welcoming environment has allowed students to deepen their understanding of essential critical components of Social and Emotional Learning.
Supporting literacy development at Walnut Road.
While social and emotional learning will continue to be embedded into the fabric of our school environment, our focus, moving forward, will be to build interest and skills in literacy, specifically writing.
Literacy
Literacy is a core life skill that is essential for effective communication. Reading and writing help us to make sense of the world around us and to express our thoughts, ideas, and expressions to others. As such, developing effective literacy skills is central to supporting our learners as they learn to problem solve, share ideas, exchange information, and work both independently and in collaboration with others.
All teachers, across all grades, provide students with learning opportunities aimed at increasing the literacy success rates of our learners.
The following examples highlight literacy learning across the school.
1. Our learners understand that learning requires an explanation of one's identity. They can communicate pride in who they are and what they can do through images and written language.
Students respond to literature. The above prewriting piece was generated as a response to literature. A poem about hands narrated by the author Sarah Kay (found below in the video link) served as the mentor text to which the students could respond.
"We believe that the storyteller is deep inside every one of us. The story maker is always with us. Imaginations shape us, keep us, create us - for good and for ill. It is our stories, the storyteller, that will recreate us." - Doris Lessing
2. Our learners can participate in conversations and communicate their ideas confidently about topics they know and understand.
Students make connections with nature and the land. The following statements are authentic communications of their understanding of their connections with nature.
"When I breathe the freshy air, my brain can get quiet."
"There is nothing wrong with having a tree as a friend."
"I am happy out here. Dirty feet, messy hair, and wild water on my skin."
3. Our learners can make connections to the real world and communicate their learning beyond the classroom.
Students worked together to raise awareness through a classroom presentation about the human impacts on biodiversity.
"We learned how big of a problem biodiversity loss actually is. The destruction of habitat loss of food shelter and water has a dramatic impact on a variety of species."
OUR FOCUS
Our focus on writing is valuable because it helps students think critically about the world around them while encouraging them to grasp, organize and connect prior knowledge with new ideas. All students benefit from a strong foundation and understanding of the importance of communication. Our aim is to build strong foundations in communication, both oral and written. All teachers, across all grades, provide students with learning opportunities aimed at increasing the writing success rates of all our learners. To highlight and determine overall success and gaps, we monitor the progress of one cohort at the upper intermediate level.
Our students learning goals include:
- Communicating their understandings with clarity using oral, written, visual and digital forms of communication.
- Using the writing process to plan, develop, and create engaging and meaningful text for a variety of purposes and audiences.
Teachers from K-7 provided students with learning opportunities aimed at increasing the written literacy success rates of our learners. To highlight and determine overall success and gaps, we focused on one cohort of intermediate learners.
The opportunity to be immersed in daily writing is critical to student success in writing. Writing can take many forms - personal reflective writing in journals, procedural writing, and story-telling. Opportunities to engage deeply and purposefully every day serve to stretch and strengthen our students' proficiency in writing.
The use of "mentor texts" (Mentor texts are written pieces that serve as an example of good writing for student writers. The texts are read for the purpose of studying the author's craft, or the way the author uses words and structures the writing. The goal is to provide students with a model they can emulate in crafting their own pieces which helps students examine and explore structures to better understand the key elements of powerful writing. )
This approach is being used across the entire cohort.
OUR NEXT STEPS
Evidence of our students' learning demonstrates that our literacy focus is positively impacting our cohort of learners.
- Communicating their understandings with clarity using oral, written, visual and digital forms of communication.
- Using the writing process to plan, develop, and create engaging and meaningful text for a variety of purposes and audiences.
When surveyed and asked to communicate their students' progress, teachers from our cohort indicated that all students demonstrated growth in relation to our literacy goals.
Specifically:
- the overwhelming majority of students in the cohort demonstrated greater confidence, risk-taking, and voice.
- for those who found writing challenging, their thoughts and ideas flowed more freely and they felt more successful in their ability to communicate effectively through writing.
In communicating their understanding with clarity using oral written and visual and digital forms of communication and using writing processes to plan develop and create engaging and meaningful text for a variety of purposes and audiences.
All students showed growth in their ability to communicate with clarity, express their thinking in a variety of ways, and convey meaning to an audience
Moving forward, we will increase the opportunity to engage in purposeful daily writing across all intermediate grades.
We will explore the possibility of school-wide writing using consistent language and assessment approaches to identify themes and map out the next steps.
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.
