Westerman Elementary
OUR CONTEXT
OUR CONTEXT
Located on the shared, unneeded, traditional territories of the Katzie, Semiahmoo, Kwantlen and other Coast Salish Peoples', in the City of Surrey, BC, Westerman Elementary is home to a wonderful and richly diverse learning community.
Building on the legacy of compassion, hard work, and service to community that was modelled by Surrey's 1997 Volunteer of the Year and the school's namesake, Margaret Westerman, our learners participate in a range of learning activities that expand their awareness, understanding and acceptance of others. They also put their learning into action and participate in a range of initiatives that support the health and well-being of their community, especially those who are more vulnerable. Whether collecting donations for the food bank, taking part in community environmental projects, organizing multicultural events, raising money for cancer research, or actively recycling and re-using, Westerman students show they care about others and appreciate any opportunity to give back to their community.
Westerman Elementary is a model of inclusion, understanding, and acceptance, regardless of background, socio-economic status, and identity. With dozens of languages, nationalities and cultures represented in the school community, Westerman is literally a place "where the world learns and plays together".
In a safe and supportive environment, Westerman Elementary challenges all students to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitude essential to be positive, proactive, and successful learners, and contributing members of the community.
OUR LEARNERS
OUR LEARNERS
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is the process that supports adults, youth, and children in developing skills that are necessary for school, work, and life. This includes self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationships skills, and social awareness. These skills are embedded in all subject areas in BC's curriculum. Below, we celebrate our learners' successes and strengths in the areas of:
- Social Awareness and Responsibility
SOCIAL AWARENESS
Our learners advocate and take action for their communities and the natural world, with the expectation of making a positive difference.
In this science and social studies cross-curricular project, students learn about the life cycle of the salmon, and the connection it has with local Indigenous cultures and the environment as a whole. Building on this knowledge, students learn the importance of taking care of the sources of water that feed the waterways in which the salmon live. The students learn that how we treat the environment in our own communities can have a negative or positive impact on the health of salmon. With their newfound knowledge, our learners took action by taking part in a community initiative whereby students painted images of salmon next storm drains, to remind people that the water that enters through the grates is directly connected to a local salmon habitat.
When asked to reflect on the connection between our actions in the community and the impact it can have on salmon, one student stated that people "shouldn't litter because it goes into the water and when you start your car, it can pollute the water. If you pollute the water, the fishes and salmon can get a little bit suffocated and their life gets harder. And then they can die. If there are no salmon then grizzly bears and bald eagles can't eat."
Our learns interact with others respectfully and thoughtfully.
In this Social Studies, Language Arts, and Fine Arts example, students engaged in a cross-curricular anti-racism unit. Our learners learned more about the power of words and the importance of using inclusive vocabulary. Students watched videos of famous people who have experienced racism and wrote reflections on their experiences with it. They also created murals and images for display in the hallways of the school. Students were asked about their learning:
"We had to select a word from our anti-racism unit and then make a presentation using that word. For example, I did a presentation on the word "advantage", how to describe "advantage", and created a scenario to show what "advantage" means."
"The impact of learning this is that we are teaching ourselves that it is okay if we have different skin colours than others, it doesn't make us different on the inside. We are still all the same on the inside."
"It is good to learn about this sort of thing at this age, because in life we can use it to change things for the better."
In familiar settings, our learners interact with others and work and play cooperatively.
In this Physical Education and SEL example, our learners understand the following Big Ideas:
- Effective collaboration relies on clear, respectful communication.
- Everything we learn helps us to develop skills.
Students were taught the rules and skills of a favourite sport that they enjoyed both in their free time, and as part of a structured, Physical Education learning activity. In addition to learning the rules and skills of the game, the students also learned a common vocabulary and set of strategies to help them navigate their interactions with each other during the game in a cooperative, and socially and emotionally safe, manner . During unstructured times, senior leadership students played alongside the students and supported what had been learned in class earlier.
OUR FOCUS
OUR FOCUS
Every day, our learners are presented with opportunities to practice and demonstrate their Social and Emotional Learning skills and capabilities. 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 recently tracked Social Awareness and Responsibility within a combined-grade cohort of learners from diverse linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds. The learners within the cohort are representative of the diversity that exists in the rest of the school population.
Social Awareness and Responsibility involves the awareness, understanding, and appreciation of connections among people. Social Awareness and Responsibility focuses on interacting with others in respectful and caring ways.
People who are socially aware and responsible contribute to the well-being of their social environments. They support the development of welcoming and inclusive communities, where people feel safe and have a sense of belonging.
A socially aware and responsible individual contributes positively to their family and empathizes with others and appreciates their perspectives; resolves problems peacefully; and develops and sustains healthy relationships
The facets of the "social awareness and responsibility" competency we focused on was:
Resolving Problems: Students identify and develop an appreciation for different perspectives on issues. They show empathy, disagree respectfully, and create space for others to use their voices. They generate, use, and evaluate strategies to resolve problems across all subject areas.
In our cohort, we incorporated daily lessons cemented in structured program to increase children’s social awareness, and to enhance their ability to prevent and/or resolve problems effectively and independently. Learners were taught direct and explicit strategies that could be employed proactively in order to prevent interpersonal problems from occurring in the first place.
OUR NEXT STEPS
OUR NEXT STEPS
Our learners are developing their SEL skills and capacities. In the focus area of social awareness and responsibility, students demonstrated an increase in their ability to:
- Resolving problems independently
RESOLVING PROBLEMS
Through daily lessons, stories, regular engagement with buddy classes, observations of written reflective work and through small group discussions, we discovered that our learners were better able to define the problem, think of solutions, and explore different outcomes that met the wants of each student. More than 80% of students within the cohort are now proficient at identifying strategies to resolve problems, as demonstrated through their writing. They were also better able to understand their brains and their emotions, to grow in empathy for one another, and to gain important strategies for self regulation. By doing so, it was also observed that our students accepted greater responsibility for their actions and outcomes and were better able to engage in their learning in a more calm and focused manner. They were also more will to persist when presented with challenges in other areas of their learning. The overwhelming majority of the students were able to recognize the connection between their actions and the impact on others in physical education.
Moving Forward
Advancing our learners skillsets in social awareness and responsibility have been very 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.
Social Awareness
- Increase opportunities for all students to reflect on their own self-awareness and connect how their emotional and physiological responses impact their actions and behaviour. This will be done in different contexts for deeper understanding (classroom, playground, hallways, gym, etc.).
- 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).
- Gain a deeper understanding of the optimal conditions for learning for every student.
Responsibility
- Further embed teaching of social and self-awareness skills throughout curricular areas (explicit SEL skills).
- Create more opportunities for students to take ownership of their learning and practice responsible decision making (i.e. learning through inquiry)
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.
