Our School Plan Progress 2020-2021

Improving Student Learning

The Abbotsford School District’s Strategic Plan reflects our public commitment to BC’s new curriculum by working together to continuously improve learning for each student.

School Goals

Under the Framework for Enhancing Student Learning, all Abbotsford School District schools are required to develop a long term plan to improve student achievement, one that maintains a balance on the intellectual, social and career development of students. Each year, each school develops an annual plan and sets individual goals to improve student achievement. 

Prince Charles Elementary School Goals

Intellectual

Our students will learn key academic skills - like reading, writing and math - to encompass the knowledge and processes associated with intellectual development. As learners and meaning-makers, students take subject-specific concepts and content and transform them into a new understanding. 

Our celebrations of learning

The new BC Curriculum focuses on a deeper, conceptual understanding of big ideas in Literacy and Numeracy.  A greater emphasis is being placed on what students are able to ‘do’ with the knowledge (content) they are being taught.  By applying their skills and knowledge in a variety of situations, students will develop strengths in the following competencies:

Critical thinking and problem solving;
Collaboration and leadership;
Communication and digital literacy;
Personal and social responsibility;
Creativity and innovation;
Global and cultural understanding

In Abbotsford School District, we are growing our practices to provide engaging and meaningful opportunities for students to develop their critical literacy and numeracy skills.

 

Our school goal at Prince Charles is to encourage every child to see themselves as a mathematician.  We are working as a team to deepen students’ understanding of number and increase their abilities to think flexibly about mathematical situations.  Students will develop a more conceptual understanding of mathematics (knowing more than isolated facts and methods) and this will allow them to understand mathematical ideas and relationships more deeply, in turn making it easier for them to transfer their knowledge to new situations and contexts.

Students have a good understanding of content knowledge in mathematics.  Our SNAP (Student Numeracy Assessment and Practice) data shows that our students need more opportunites to express their thinking about 'number'.  Students will need more practice sharing their thinking orally, representing it with tools and pictures, demonstrating that they understand what a question is asking and that they can connect an understanding of quantity to the world around them.  

Next Steps:

Continue to provide daily opportunities for Number Talks (building flexible thinking and sense of number) in all grades;
Ensure differentiation of learning for all students at all Tiers;
Provide explicit, targeted, data-driven instruction for Tier 2 students;
Plan forward in like-grade teams looking at Math Competency Data from SNAP assessments

Strategies

Daily number talks in all K-5 classrooms;
Regular use and moderation of student thinking for students of interest;
Balanced Numeracy programs to be established (modelled, shared, interactive, guided and independent)
Students to share their thinking (accountable talk);

 Literacy Next Steps:

Continue to provide daily opportunities for guided reading in K-3;

Continuation of Levelled Literacy Intervention Program (LLI);
Ensure differentiation of learning for all students at all Tiers;
Provide explicit, targeted, data-driven instruction for Tier 2 students;
 

Strategies

Daily guided reading in all K-3 classrooms;
Regular use and moderation of running records for students of interest;
Balanced literacy programs to be established for Reading and Writing (modelled, shared, interactive, guided and independent)
Computers available for reluctant writers in intermediate grades
Students to share their thinking (accountable talk);

Writing Next Steps:

Writing is an area where we need to do more work as a school.  

Continue to provide daily opportunities for modelled, interactive and independent writing in K-3;
Ensure differentiation of learning for all students at all Tiers;
Provide explicit, targeted, data-driven instruction for Tier 2 students;
Use of PM Writing kits as part of writing program in Grades 3-5.

Strategies

Daily guided reading in all K-3 classrooms;
Regular use and moderation of running records for students of interest;
Balanced literacy programs to be established for Reading and Writing (modelled, shared, interactive, guided and independent)
Computers available for reluctant writers in intermediate grades
Students to share their thinking (accountable talk);

Indigenous Principles of Learning Next Steps:

Provide culturally relevant opportunities for writing/oral language opportunities for storytelling prior to writing;
School-based teacher and cultural support staff for Aboriginal students continue to provide weekly individualized literacy support in consultation with classroom teacher, supplemental to any other school-based supports in place;
Early intervention and support in the area of mathematics is beneficial to all; Indigenous students to receive support from school-based teacher and cultural support worker in consultation with classroom teacher.

Personalized learning means that students are provided with the right amount of challenge and support when learning new things.  In kindergarten, children are given the opportunity to participate in guided reading (using PM benchmark levelled texts), when they have mastered some of their letters and sounds.  These students work each day with the teacher and practice thier skills during independent reading.  Literacy centers in the classroom are differentiated to meet the needs of all learners and are tied to language development and learning through play.

In order to meet the diverse needs of learners, teachers spend time working with students individually to determine their accuracy, fluency and comprehension when reading texts.  This allows teachers and students to celebrate achievement, set goals and plan next steps for learning.

Staff and students have been working on learning more about self-regulation (social emotional learning skills) this year.  Students have been introduced to common vocabulary through whole class and small group lessons.  Students are working towards learning various strategies to up and down regulate their bodies so they can be calm, alert and ready to learn.  

Human & Social

Our students will study personal and human social skills and as they relate to students' identity in the world - both as individuals and as members of their community. We are learning that personal and human social skills encompass the abilities students needs to thrive as individuals, to understand and care about themselves and others, and to find and achieve their purposes in the world. 

Our celebrations of learning

Prince Charles is a Virtues School and is a member of the BC Schools of Character.  Character education is at the heart of everything we do.  Meaningful connections are made between the curriculum and character education through the texts we read, the classroom discussions we have, the service we provide to the school and local communities and the student leadership opportunities offered in the school.

This year our school moved towards three BIGGER ideas that would allow for more differentiation and personalization of learning based on classroom needs and interests. These are based on Adrienne Gear's Powerful Understanding, focusing on thinking critically, reflecting, being compassionate, responsible, caring citizens. 

Term 1- Powerful Understanding "Self"

Term 2- Powerful Understanding "Others"

Term 3- Powerful Understanding "World"

Our Prince Charles students gain a deeper understanding of each of these values and they are reflected in our everyday language at school.

During the holiday season, Prince Charles Student Council raised awareness and donations for the Abbotsford Food Bank.   Students, under the guidance of a teacher, selected the charity they felt most passionate about and shared information to our school and parent community.  

Connecting critical literacy to character development is an area of focus and growth at Prince Charles.  As a team, we are working towards using a variety of rich texts to develop our students’ critical literacy skills and their ability to deepen their understanding of the values we believe in.

The Library Leaders work in the Learning Commons focusing on organization; gathering resources for staff; providing enriching opportunities in the library for students.

The Green Team has learned about responsible use of materials, grown their own vegetables in garden boxes, encouraged the school community to reduce their environmental footprints and helped beautify our outdoor spaces. 

Our Student Council has the goal of bringing school spirit and a sense of community to Prince Charles.  Monthly spirit days have excellent participation from staff and students.

We are very fortunate to have a cultural support worker and Indigenous education teacher working with our students at Prince Charles.  

Prince Charles continues to work on developing a common language among students, staff and families in the areas of social emotional learning and Positive Behaviour Interventions and Supports (PBIS).  

Staff and students are working on building a common understanding of what it means to be SAFE, RESPONSIBLE AND RESPECTFUL at PC. 

We currently have a variety of flexible seating, mentor texts and two sensory paths throughout the school.  Our generous PAC has supported us in building up our resources this year in the area of social emotional learning.  

See below for more images.

Careers

Our students will succeed in a much different future from the one we envisioned 10 or 15 years ago. It is our responsibility to prepare all children for success in whatever life path they choose, connecting learning opportunities with future career possibilities. We know that real-life experiences - like community involvement, gaining business knowledge, and hands-on-learning - build better students and life-long citizens. 

Our celebrations of learning

Careers

Prince Charles uses the foundation of the Virtues project to help teach social responsibility and build student's character.  We connect character education to critical literacy during our bi-weekly school-wide assemblies and in our classrooms. 

Prince Charles is equipped with the latest technology to help teach and engage students in the classroom.  These include smart boards, iPads, document cameras and laptops. The staff have been actively involved in discovering ways to enhance student learning and global awareness through the use of Twitter, class websites, email, and Skype.

This year, our LLC teacher has been partnering with classes to introduce them to Makerspaces and Coding.  Through the use of technology and partnering, we are encouraging our students to become creators and leaders, which will empower them with skills to be successful beyond the classroom. 

 

Coding

Coding is another avenue for students to develop their strengths in critical and creative thinking.  Coding is, “a system of signals used to represent letters or numbers in transmitting messages. The instructions in a computer program.” 

Why do we teach coding at school?

“Computer coding is the universal language of the planet. People who know how to code will be able to communicate across countries and cultures, be innovative, and solve problems more efficiently, with no barriers to impede their success. Learning programming at a young age helps your children solve everyday problems and get set up for a lifetime of opportunities.”  https://elearningindustry.com/4-benefits-learning-programming-at-a-young-age-2

At Prince Charles, our Learning Commons teacher, Ms. Bulat has been working in partnership with 50% of our classes on learning to code.  There are many websites, games, and pieces of technology that can be used to teach students how to code.  Code.org, Bee Bots and Spheros are some of the ways that we are learning to code at Prince Charles. 

This learning spans across disciplines, and allows our students to deepen their core competency skills in the areas of communication, creative and critical thinking.    

Makerspaces

A makerspace is, “a place in which people with shared interests, can gather to work on projects while sharing ideas, equipment, and knowledge.”  These spaces promote the development of the core competencies; communication, creative and critical thinking.  These core competencies are at the heart of the redesigned BC curriculum.  The development of these core competencies enable our students to deepen and develop skills for life-long learning.

The benefits of makerspaces are:

The empowering and cross subject approach of makerspaces help prepare our students for a future we cannot yet imagine;
Makerspaces are learner-centered.  Our students begin to see themselves as problem-solvers.  They have good ideas to share, and they experience success solving problems in co-operative teams;
Students develop confidence to tackle challenging problems that are often connect to the real world in a meaningful way; 
Makerspaces allow for all students to access a problem and to use their own areas of strength to work though, and solve, the problem. This builds confidence in ALL of our students;

Adapted from https://curiositycommons.wordpress.com/makerspaces-the-benefits/

A variety of guests come to visit students and staff each year at Prince Charles, bringing with them expertise in a variety of areas.  This year we have had outside presenters share with us their knowledge of owls (and our grade 3's dissected pellets!), inclusion (Green Thumb Theatre presentation), hip hop dance (students performed after only a week of instruction...amazing!), real-life scientists leading rocket experiments in Kindergarten, and many more.  

Through these experiences, students are exposed to a variety of possible career paths and they are able to make more meaningful connections between what they are learning at school and what they may do with some of this learning in the 'real world'.