Accommodating Newcomers TO Ontario Schools

I have chosen to include the checklist I constructed for section 2.1Inclusive School Communities as it touches on many ideas that I have learned during this module about how to provide newcomer ELL students and their families with what they need to be successful and feel valued as a member of the school community. My checklist includes items that are to be completed before newcomers arrive and should be included as a part of our school environment such as student created, multilingual signage. Additionally, this checklist reminds me to take a step back and inquire as to what newcomer families may need, instead of just ‘talking at’ them which could potentially be very overwhelming.

This artifact is important for working with ELLs as not every ELL is a newcomer, but having supports in place for families whose primary language isn’t English can make them feel included in the school community and supported regardless of whether they are new to Canada or have lived here for a very long time. Opportunities such as extended library hours with dual-language and multilingual texts are an example of a practice that can promote engagement with literacy and, as stated above in artifact 1, be a key part of academic success.

[Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3XBPgjLJc0 and https://phecanada.ca/programs/we-belong]

This object is very different from the others I have selected for my portfolio. I came across the Physical and Health Education (PHE) Canada website during section 5.1 of this module. I used some of their resources on building resilience and a safe classroom for my Intercultural Competence response. After looking around the website a bit more, I found the We Belong program. The webpage for the We Belong program provides the following statistic: “Youth who immigrate to Canada are 40% less likely to meet physical activity guidelines within the first 1–2 years of immigration” (Kukaswadia, Pickett, & Janssen, 2014). This was startling to me. It had never occurred to me that being a newcomer to Canada could negatively impact one’s physical health.

I have chosen to include this object because it is a reminder to me of the need to support newcomer ELLs’ physical needs as well as their mental, emotional, and educational needs. Now that I am aware that many newcomers to Canada are not what we would consider to be ‘physically literate’, I can focus on this in the mainstream classroom or provide information to mainstream classroom teachers who work with ELLs.

While the We Belong program is not free, the webpage links to some helpful webinars on Youtube related to the program. Additionally, the PHE Canada website has plenty of resources regarding physical and health literacy that can be very useful in supporting students with diverse Health and Physical Education experiences.