School Goal One
Promote mental health and well-being through Social Emotional Learning and trauma informed practice.
How will strengthening resilience and perseverance strategies in our students impact their academic success and well being?
Observations and Discussion points May 2023 during school planning session surfaced the following:
- Less social connections over the last 3 years due to pandemic;
- Observed increase in anxious thoughts in students; and
- Less perseverance, i.e. a tendency to ‘give up easily’.
This goal and driving inquiry aligns to both our Mental Health and Well Being and Indigenous Learner Success district strategic goals and First Peoples Principles of Learning.
First Peoples Principles of Learning
The Mental Health and Well-Being Goal needs to ensure that:
- Learning ultimately supports the well-being of the self, the family, the community, the land, the spirits, and the ancestors.
- Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place).
- Learning is embedded in memory, history, and story.
Over the course of the year, the following will be our direct areas of focus:
- Build capacity and training for staff:
- Arrange ProD in the area of SEL resiliency and perseverance;
- Schedule regular “Lunch and Learns” for staff on relevant SEL topics/strategies.
- Provide structure and staff to support SEL learning by having Class profile meetings that use 3 tier intervention model and emphasis on supporting teachers in tier 1 - Universal Design of Learning (UDL) in the classroom;
- Collect Base line data - Collaborate to find a way to record base line of current levels of resilience/perseverance to tasks - Parent, Staff, Student surveys;
- Aligns with evidence based research, current resources and Trauma Informed practice; and
- Incorporate W̱SÁNEĆ cultural traditions that strengthen mental wellness.
Over the 2023-24 year, we will track progress on our initiatives identified in this year’s plan. And, specifically:
- Class profile meeting - bi-annual review of academic and SEL strengths and stretches with Inclusion support team (IST, counselor, admin, ELS, SLP, Psychologist, Literacy intervention) to guide term to term interventions in the area of SEL and support using the 3 tiers of intervention model and track and adjust over the year;
- Report card: data from previous year and current year to observe the work habits and growth mindset (resilience to difficult tasks);
- Teacher capacity - Through PRO-D and Lunch/Learn - Increase in teacher competency in the area of SEL and regular targeted instruction of strategies (modeling) with students, increase use of common language in the area of SEL;
- Teacher observations - increase in student awareness of applying strategies, increase academic readiness, increase motivation, increase resilience and perseverance; and
- Student Empathy interviews/ Survey- base line on mental wellness, strategies to that are used to persevere through tasks and be resilient.
Summary learning, based on evidence gathered over the year, will provide us with key learnings to guide next steps for the 2024-25 school year and beyond.
