This theme emphasizes the importance of establishing physical and emotional well-being as a core foundation for student success. By promoting healthy habits, such as regular physical activity, balanced nutrition, quality sleep, and mental health support, we aim to equip students with the resilience and energy they need to thrive both academically and socially. A focus on health empowers students to approach learning with greater engagement, manage stress effectively, and build positive relationships within their community.

Social and Emotional Well-Being: Trends indicate fluctuations in students' sense of belonging and an increase in reported anxiety, especially among older students. While many students report positive peer relationships, fewer feel consistently supported by adult advocates, highlighting a need for strengthened mentorship and mental health resources to foster a stable, connected school environment.

Physical Well-Being: Physical well-being data reveals mixed trends. While more students meet daily physical activity goals each year, there’s a gradual increase in screen time and a decline in students reporting quality nutrition and sleep habits. These trends suggest the importance of balancing physical activity initiatives with education on screen time management and healthy lifestyle choices, such as sleep hygiene and nutrition, to support students' overall health.

Together, these trends underscore the need for a holistic approach that integrates social-emotional support, health education, and physical activity to create a well-rounded foundation for student well-being.

The literacy data indicates a steady performance at the "On Track" level across Grades 4 and 7, suggesting that foundational literacy skills are being well established. However, there is a decline in the percentage of students achieving the "Extending" level as they progress to higher grades, particularly by Grade 7. Simultaneously, the "Emerging" category shows a slight increase by Grade 7, indicating that some students may struggle with advanced literacy skills, such as critical reading and comprehension.

These trends suggest a need for targeted literacy support and enrichment programs that foster higher-order reading and analysis skills. Strengthening critical literacy skills early on could help more students reach advanced levels and maintain progress through upper grades, supporting overall academic growth and engagement.

The numeracy data shows strong foundational skills at the "On Track" level in Grade 4, but a notable shift occurs by Grade 7, with a decrease in students reaching the "Extending" level and an increase in the "Emerging" category. This trend suggests that while many students begin with solid numeracy skills, fewer are advancing to higher competency levels as they progress, indicating potential challenges in mastering complex mathematical concepts and problem-solving skills.

These trends highlight the need for additional support in numeracy, particularly in advanced skills that require critical thinking and application. Focused interventions and enrichment opportunities in numeracy could help bridge this gap, encouraging more students to progress to the "Extending" level and strengthening overall numeracy proficiency across grades.

Critical Thinking in Our School Learning Plan

One of the key challenges we face in supporting student growth is extrapolating critical thinking skills from quantitative data. Critical thinking is an inherently complex and nuanced competency that doesn’t always lend itself to straightforward measurement. It often resists traditional, numeric assessment and can be elusive to track in consistent, quantifiable terms.

Additionally, we recognize that a student's ability to think critically may vary significantly across different subjects. A child who demonstrates strong critical thinking skills in a familiar subject may struggle to apply the same skills in a different discipline. This variability makes it even more challenging to generalize critical thinking ability across a broad curriculum.

To create a more focused and meaningful approach, we will concentrate our critical thinking development efforts within a single subject area this year. Our staff will collectively determine the best subject for this focus, allowing us to target our instruction and assessment practices more effectively. By narrowing our focus, we aim to provide clearer, more impactful opportunities for students to deepen and demonstrate their critical thinking skills in a structured way.

Our PBIS journey began last year with the help of Clare Hanbury under the leadership of KM Lowe. The school community developed the school values which conveniently make the acronym "PAWS" which stands for:

Playfulness

Accountability

We Not Me

Stamina

This has been crossed with the Lil'Wat Principles of Learning.

Our data collection here is going to be a blend of quantitative data from our behaviour reporting and student reports of how they feel in our school with the qualitative street data of anecdotal reports and our PAWS tickets.