What research have you considered in selecting your chosen stratgies and structures?
Many of the strategies and structures at Brackendale Elemenetary have been in place for a very long time and are considered established and best practice.
Specifically related to deepening student engagement with school community and culture, there have been a number of external resources that have proven and will continue to be useful in developing our PBIS framework:
SD48 Mental Health in School committee
"Effects of PBIS on Behaviour and Academic Achievement in a Canadian Elementary School"
Canadian Journal of School Psychology
PBIS in Canada - Deep History, Promising Future
Canadian Journal of School Psychology
PBIS Implementation Guideline
New Brunswick Ministry of Education
What strategies and structures are currently working in your school?
School Based Team
In-school counselling
Classroom mapping and classroom placement processes
EA/classroom teacher collaboration
Collaborative Support Teachers
In-class and small group LST instruction
Attendance tracking and follow-up
Widespread use of restorative justice practices;
Multi-aged groupings in classrooms and school-wide activities;
Buddy classes
EdPlan Insight Data Collection
Calming spaces & breaks
Sensory tools;
CMOS interventions, co-planning, co-teaching, and co-assessing;
In-class and 1:1 ELL interventions;
Centered-based approaches
Hands-on learning
Play-based learning
Roots of Empathy
Assemblies;
Student leadership
Collaboration amongst teachers;
EA supports (meaningful and supportive supports of our goals);
What new strategies or structures do you plan to use? Why?
School-wide PBIS framework
New quiet and active sensory rooms
"Homebase" learning services model
Common prep time for teachers of similar grades;
More time at Staff Meetings examining the school goal and the data generated
More Assemblies focusing on PBIS, expectations and school culture
More School-wide Inquiry/Project Based Learning;
Increased community presence in the school, including greater integration with DRMS
A greater use of student self-reflection and self-assessment
Exit interviews for grade 6 students
What new strategy or structure are you most excited about? Why?
We are most excited about our PBIS framework, as it is a significant change in the day to day operations of the school, and will hopefully have a significant and possibly profound shift to school culture.
We are also excited to better understand the strategies and structures that can be used to create a greater sense of agency for students. This has not yet been done, but is the work moving forward.
How do you monitor strategies and refine them as required?
Once we devise specific strategies around providing choice, both in primary and intermediate grade levels, these will be revisited once a term with staff, and when school-wide data is collected.
With a large-scale framework like PBIS, we are frequently monitoring its implementation. We bring it back, again and again, to staff to improve its implementation. We will solicit feedback from parents and from staff. We will also collect qualitative and quantitative data to allow us to make objective decisions about this strategy.
We are monitoring our absenteeism strategy monthly at staff meetings, and using feedback from parents as it is collected.
What is your professional learning plan for staff?
Led by administration, and through discussion with staff, as well as district-level resources, we will discuss student agency and its application in all of our grade levels. There are also numerous speakers and presenters on this topic, and that can be explored as a Pro-D opportunity with staff.
Again, the primary focus will be around our goal of PBIS and its implementation. Using professional resources and competent staff on the Mental Health in Schools committee, and outside professionals, we will deepen our understanding of how to best implement our framework
There is also an increased desire in working with the school Pro-D committee and school administration to have some full-staff professional development on our school-based Pro-D days. That had not be a common practice in the last number of years. Specific topics will be developed in collaboration with the Pro-D committee.
How is your budget aligned with this School Learning Plan?
Costs should be minimal around the goal of student agency.
Purposeful learning opportunities should involve a certain amount of place-based learning opportunties in the community. Many of these are free, but some might involve costs such as entrance fees, transportation, etc...
There are some specific costs associated with a PBIS framework. This involves purchasing "rewards" and "incentives". Our operational budget will also have money used to create displays around the school that highlight school expectations and successes.
Other staff spending will be focused on support student learning as much as possible.
How does the school goal address achievement for specific groups of at-risk students? Most able students?
There is ongoing anecdotal evidence that our most vulnerable learners are not interested or engaged in their academic work, and feel a weaker connection to the school. They don't feel they have a choice in their learning and are simply in school "because they have to be".
There is a strong correlation between our most vulnerable students and those with chronic absenteeism. There is evidence that shows a strong PBIS framework, as well as a cohesive structure for addressing absenteeism, will increase attendance, which will improve learning outcomes.
Our school goal should allow our most able student the opportunity to deepen their connection to the school, provide leadership and mentorship to other students, as well as feeling "in charge" of their learning and possess the confidence to make connections between what they do in school and the world outside of it.
How does your school plan to monitor student success and intervene when students struggle with their learning?
Using many of the strucutre and strategies outlined, we will monitor both the academic and behavioural success of our students on an ongoing basis, but particularly at year start and year end, and on a monthly basis specifically for attendance tracking.
Intervention is happening on a fluid and frequent basis. Through school-based team meetings, LST check-ins, EA and staff meetings, parent meetings, circle, and many other practices, we implement the best possible course of action to try to support student learning.
How will student success be monitored and intervened when students struggle with their learning?
Weekly SBT Meetings
Ongoing Classroom Mapping
Achievement data to be tracked and reviewed by administration and reviewed with staff
A clear chronic absenteeism strategy
Speech and Language Pathology;
Restorative Justice practices
Teaching through a Trauma Informed lens.
How are you using Collaborative Models of Support to differentiate for students' needs?
There are formal CMOS structures in the school that involve the LST teacher, CST teachers and classroom teachers. This involves co-planning to create supportive and inclusive classrooms, co-teaching, small group instruction, 1:1 pullout structures, and more.
There is also co-planning for specific skills where individual teacher strengths are put to use. For example, classroom teachers with math strengths will switch classrooms with a teacher with science strenths so that students are receiving the best possible education, based on teacher passion and strength.
Supporting classroom teachers when they Co-plan with other staff.
What authentic classroom information is being used by your teacher teams to support planning for responsive instruction?
There is ongoing use of formative and summative assessment
Frequent student self-assessment, and in more limited cases, peer assessment
Classroom mapping twice a year to monitor both individual changes in students, and the classroom "ecosystem"
Literacy Assessment, and numeracy assessment, although numeracy assessment is still not standardized