Page 1
Uplands Elementary School
145 Middle Bench Road South
Penticton, BC V2A 8S7
Principal: Mrs. Lisa Edwards
SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN 2014-15
SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT:
Uplands Elementary is the school with the view, situated above Penticton’s city centre and Okanagan
Lake. Approximately 265 students are enrolled from Kindergarten to grade 5 in twelve divisions. The
school provides a full K-5 education program for students in both our catchment area, which includes
neighbourhood surrounding the school, residents along Naramata Road and a number of streets close
to Penticton’s downtown core, as well as students who transfer to attend. Uplands Elementary proudly
provides a strong start in the core areas of education; as well as programs that extend our children’s
learning such as extracurricular sports, music, art and leadership opportunities for students, staff and
parents.
Our school is privileged to have a supportive Parent Advisory Council and community. PAC provides
financial support to subsidize a number of extra-curricular activities. This support helps to provide
necessary transportation, resources and equipment to extend learning into alternate locations in and
around our community. A meaningful connection to the surrounding environment offers students the
opportunity for involvement with and service to others while engaging in meaningful, hands-on
educational experiences.
We believe strongly in creating and maintaining a culture at Uplands that is welcoming, safe and a
healthy learning environment. Our staff members (teaching, non-enrolling, itinerant and support) are
dedicated to making Uplands a high quality learning environment with respect to classroom and school
activities. We provide a wide array of learning and growing opportunities for our students.
INTRODUCTION/RATIONALE:
Despite the delayed beginning of the school year we collectively determined that a school focus on
teacher collaboration was a direction we needed to pursue. As part of implementing Response to
Intervention strategies it became apparent to us that our Learning Support model was already exploring
and approaching support for students in alignment with Tier 2 suggested structures. In-class, side-byside teaching, co-planning and instruction were part of our many learning assistance procedures.
It was decided that our Learning Support team would continue to refine our approaches. We had
knowledge and a shared philosophy that supported changes being discussed around Tier 2 and Tier 3
changes. We will continue to expand those opportunities that we felt were headed in the right direction.
We did feel a disconnect between our Tier 1 instructional approaches school-wide including whole class
and small group “second shot” strategies. While we recognized that there were many excellent
approaches and programs being used, we sensed we were missing some cohesion between levels.
Honouring teacher autonomy was important to us, however we knew that our teachers were eager to
share their expertise, broaden or narrow their own approach and learn from each other about
instructional strategies which were highly efficient and effective. Teachers responded individually as to
why they chose their goal and those rationale are included in the summaries that follow.
School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
Page 2
We decided that staff would choose an individual goal under the umbrella theme of teacher collaboration.
This was intended to serve multiple purposes including:
 Improving staff collegiality and school climate
 sharing of teaching strategies and ideas
 providing opportunities for classroom visitations
 supporting professional goals
 supporting teacher inquiry projects
 adopting research-based best practices in classrooms
 directly or indirectly improving student achievement
Research shows that collaboration between teachers can be a powerful tool for professional development
and a driver for school improvement by providing “opportunities for adults across a school system to
learn and think together about how to improve their practice in ways that lead to improved student
achievement” (Annenberg Institute for School Reform, 2004, p. 2).
INQUIRY QUESTION
If we explore teacher collaboration as a strategy to change teacher’s Tier 1 practices,
with colleagues in our own school and throughout the district,
will professional practice change and will student achievement increase?
Our school goal was to explore teacher collaboration as a strategy to change teacher practice and
improve student achievement. Our focus was on Tier 1 strategies (whole class or small group in-class
“2nd shot”) and each teacher came up with an inquiry question using a common frame. Unlike other
types of inquiry questions we purposefully included who would be part of each collaboration.
If I _____________________________ with _______________________________will student
achievement improve as measured by __________________________________.
I will accomplish this goal by:
 _______________________________________________
 _______________________________________________
 _______________________________________________
ACTION PLAN
QUESTIONS:
Each collaborative group chose their own inquiry question and developed a plan to investigate it together.
STRUCTURES AND STRATEGIES:
 Flex funds were available to support individuals/groups implement plans to meet their goal
 Staff reflective data was collected after completion focusing on how their professional practice
changed and how student achievement was impacted
 Student data will be included as applicable
School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
Page 3
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING:
 Team participation in the district’s “Beyond Inclusion” sessions
 Teacher participation in district workgroups
 Book club established for “Leader in Me”
 Formation of several Professional Learning Communities
 Professional developments days focus of individual/group/school goals
 Collaborative time to explore all areas (Virtual Field Trips, SMART, interactive projectors, Leader
in Me, Itchy’s Alphabet etc.)
RESOURCES:
 Leader in Me books and materials
 District Tech Support Staff
 Use of district technology equipment
 Online resources
 Internet access
 District Technology teacher support
 SMARTLearning mentor teachers
 ASK Assessment tool
 Itchy’s Alphabet
PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT:
 PAC funded the interactive projectors installed in our school
 Other Inquiry questions this year were not directly linked nor impacted by parents
EVIDENCE – REFLECTIVE DATA
Below is a summary of the experiences and comments made by teachers as part of their May reflection
on their personal goals for the year. Each group’s work is summarized under an individual heading.
Inquiry questions are italicized to provide a reference for reflections.
“Leader in Me”
If I focus my collaboration on the “Leader in Me” with other interested staff members, will we notice an
improvement in school environment/atmosphere?
One group focused their collaboration on “The Leader in Me”. They were prompted to choose this goal
because they saw a need for improvement of our school atmosphere, climate and wanted to be active
contributor to building a more positive culture for our school.
They formed a book club to discuss, chapter by chapter, if it was a suitable approach to:
 reduce conflicts between students during structured and unstructured times
 lead to increased random acts of kindness
 increased homework completion
 emphasize student ownership of both behaviour and academic progress
School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
Page 4
The collaborative book study has helped to change their professional practice by:
 reinforcing the need for a positive lens when reflecting on students’ needs
 recognizing that implementing a big shift in sustained thinking must follow a planned process
 teaching that students and staff need to be accountable in order to be empowered to make
positive choices in their lives
 realizing that it doesn’t take much effort to see a positive change but it does take a whole-staff
approach and consistency is imperative
Although we have yet to decide on a common language to use throughout the school, they do find
themselves giving kids the “thumbs up” and have been more conscience in referring to “bucket filling.”
They have also asked students how they can solve a problem and talked about a “win-win” situation.
It has been rewarding for them as evident in comments such as:
 “I have really enjoyed working as a team with the staff and feel that, although we are not
making many quick and noticeable changes, there is a slight shift in positivity within the staff.”
 “In general, the students I have worked with seem to be more confident and focus more on their
strengths rather than being negative and having a defeatist attitude.”
 “I would like the EAs to be involved in this collaboration somehow and looking forward to being a
part of this change for next year. I can’t wait to learn more about what the Beyond Inclusion
team has come up with!”
“Virtual Field Trips”
If I complete a virtual field trip with a colleague and their class, will student engagement and performance improve
as measured by student response to class questions, student time on task, questionnaires and post trip write-ups.
One group focused their collaboration on “Virtual Field Trips”. They were prompted to choose this goal
because they saw an opportunity to broaden the class experience by including field trips that would be
impossible in real time, due to distance or cost. Several teachers had attended a professional
development day in Kelowna and were excited about extending the classroom into an alternate
environment where information was presented by experts.
The collaborative exploration of virtual field trips has changed their professional practice
because they learned:
 how to search, organize, plan, implement and assess a virtual field trip with the help of our
district technology department
 to use technology to enhance the curriculum
 working as a team is necessary to implement a virtual field trip
 to look at CILC (Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration) for opportunities that enhance
the curriculum
 to provide students with a balance of visual, auditory and tactile experiences
 to use better assessment techniques to drive my teaching and to know where students are and
where I want them to be
The evidence that this positively impacted student learning is:
 Student engagement, excitement about the topic and time on task definitely increased
 the novel experience was interesting and motivating for students
 they produced a response that showed they had met Science learning outcomes about habitats
School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
Page 5
It has been rewarding for them as evident in comments such as:
 “Although I have always looked forward to collaboration with my colleagues it has changed my
professional practice as I will continue to learn about technology and provide virtual field trip
opportunities for the kids in my class.”
 “Working with other teachers has renewed my desire to teach in a team environment, which I
have been missing.”
 “It is good to step outside of your comfort zone and try something new even if you aren’t
completely sure what you are doing.”
 “Working with colleagues was the most rewarding part and also feeling proud of student results.”
What barriers did you encounter?
 booking of the field trip. The provider took a long time to respond to our request and left little
time for us to do a practice run with the tech people. Tech people had to come out twice to
prepare the system, as we do not have the hardware necessary to have a good linkup
 scheduling with tech department last minute was tricky but we appreciated their support
 some virtual field trips are expensive so funding them could be a challenge
 $6000 to purchase our own video equipment would be nice, although it is unlikely to happen
Next steps:
 plan a more interactive lesson, as there was too much sitting in this one
 make sure the content is new. The zoo showed three animals the kids were already familiar with
 continued support from district tech would be needed
 I will need time to meet, explore new sites and plan with colleagues
“Interactive Projectors”
If I integrate/use technology with my interactive projector and collaborate with staff, will student achievement
improve as measured through student engagement?
Two teachers focused their collaboration on integrating more technology into the classroom and daily
lessons. It was their plan to collaborate with colleagues and learn how to use a new interactive projector
as a teaching tool. They anticipated that student engagement would increase as a result. One chose to
use the portable school projector and wheeled whiteboard to use while waiting for the installation of the
new projectors. This allowed for images and videos to be integrated into the units of study. The other
began collaborating as soon as the interactive system was installed.
This has helped to change their professional practice by:
 including photos, videos, and scanned images into lessons with the portable projection system
and fully interactive mounted projectors
 observing how to use the projector to display ideas for DPA, science, socials and website
YouTube clips, scan pages from books and use the white board for interaction with word
documents
 providing visuals for students (this is a huge improvement over books)
 accessing interactive educational sites
 displaying visual reminders of daily routines and activities
 modernizing my approach to teaching with a new tool
 prompting me to explore because I was lagging behind in the use of technology
 using several video clips to enhance science and social studies content
 using a word document template for a shared a class writing activity
School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
Page 6
The evidence that this positively impacted student learning is:
 students definitely enjoyed the videos and websites that supported the units of study
 they would “perk up”compared to lecture and textbook instruction
 being able to scan images and documents from the photocopier and project them onto the
wheeled whiteboard for students to interact with also increased student engagement compared
to paper and pencil learning
 the biggest difference in student engagement was with the installation of the interactive mounted
projector at the end of April
 the most inattentive students having the greatest increase in engagement with lessons
 the majority of my students came from a previous class that had an interactive projector, so they
have come with the prerequisite technical skills and are teaching me at times
 an added benefit is the movement break that interacting with the whiteboard provides. By
including all students up and down from their seats to the whiteboard, everyone gets a chance to
be moving and engaged. Being seated for long periods of time for young students tends to
decrease student engagement
 overall engagement, interaction and excitement for learning is evident in all students. This has
been the most rewarding part for me. The excitement and eagerness of the students and the
significant improvement in engagement in discussions has rejuvenated my approach to teaching
– very exciting!
What barriers did you encounter?
 funding was allocated but unfortunately my room didn’t get a projector until the end of April
 the portable system dropped wireless signals on a frequent basis. Trying to maintain student
attention is challenging at the best of times, let alone when you’re troubleshooting technical
issues resulting in a few minutes lost here and there
Next steps:
 I have recently pursued collaboration with a primary teaching staff member to expand my
collaborative base. We recently spent a professional development day working on learning how
to use our new mounted interactive projectors. We both hope to access flex funds to continue to
develop our knowledge of both the tools and activities we can integrate into each of our
curriculums before the end of this year. We also hope to use our District Technology teacher as a
resource along this path.

I see limitless possibilities and I am excited to continue to collaborate with the teachers I have
started to connect with.

My next step will be finding the right resources and sites on the internet that can be useful. I
need to learn how to scan pages on the photocopier and then project them onto the whiteboard.
I need to learn how to move things around on the whiteboard and other interactive activities.
“Kindergarten – Phonemic Awareness”
Our Kindergarten team’s goal was to incorporate the “Itchy Alphabet” program into literacy centres in
order to improve written output measured through journal writing and centre time choices.
This has helped to change their professional practice by:
 creating various literacy centres to promote independent writing at an emergent level
 designing centres to be self-motivating and free-choice activities
School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
Page 7


working together, they gathered materials and created various literacy centres. For example,
they created rhyming games, alphabet recognition, themed vocabulary words and letter writing.
as a team, they collaborated daily and reflected on our students’ progress and continued to
extend and build on literacy activities as students progressed in their writing.
The evidence that this positively impacted student learning is:
 students are becoming more comfortable taking risks in writing with this centres approach
What barriers did you encounter?
 time constraints to prepare materials
 budget constraints were also an issue, because we tried to make everything ourselves to save
money, however creating our own materials still required time and funds
Next steps:
 our next step towards reaching our goal would be to create an assessment tool in order to track
student centre choices
 we would like to start our literacy centres earlier in the year now that we have the materials
ready
“SMARTLearning”
If I work on learning SMART strategies and sequencing with a colleague, will reading, questioning and engagement
improve as measured by the assessment of a high inference task?
If I plan a SMART learning sequence with a colleague, will student writing improve as measured by the Grade 1 and
Grade 2 writing quick scale?
If I collaborate (plan with/observe/book study/meetings) with my SMART Learning colleagues will my students’
reading skills/mindsets improve as measured by the ASK reading scale and anecdotal observations of mindsets?
One group focused their collaboration on the SMARTLearning framework. Within that group one pair
chose this because they both noticed that classes were struggling with questioning techniques. The
second chose the goal because they felt that student writing in the class was very surface. A third chose
it because she wanted to collaborate with people on staff to develop and co-teach SMART sequences and
lessons.
This has helped to change their professional practice by:
 having a SMARTLearning mentor on staff allowed a newer teacher to develop the framework by
modelling for each other and both classes of students
 acquiring a key understanding of the framework from start to finish
 properly using and implementing an Assessment for/as/of approach to the questioning strategy
 solidifying what the students know as coaches
 demonstrating how to use their knowledge and their questioning techniques have improved
 establishing a collaborative cohort (four colleagues)
 using strategies and tools in all subject areas in the classroom
 recognizing that SMART sequences do not have to be a week long; 70 minutes sequences work
 beginning to use better assessment techniques to drive teaching and to know where students are
and where we want them to be
 learning a lot of new ideas and strategies for teaching about mindsets
 gaining new ideas for classroom organization and management from other grade 1 teachers
 recognizing that teaching students about mindsets is powerful
School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
Page 8



learning that language is powerful through our “Choice Words” book study. My students and I
tried a new sequence that was great and I got new ideas about layering learning activities
adopting Mindsets and Choice Words have caused me to change the language I use when
speaking to my students. I am more aware of the implications of some words when providing
feedback. I will always teach about mindsets now
all day, every day I am mindful of my language. The impact of teaching students to have a
growth mindset (and practicing it with them) has been profound. The self-regulation, selfconfidence, sense of empowerment, and motivation of my students has greatly increased.
The evidence that this positively impacted student learning is:
 improved writing in journals
 student questions are more thoughtful in all subject areas
 in partner conversation the talk is richer
 definitely student time on task, greater amounts of writing and greater student involvement
 they are doing much better on the writing quick scale under the meaning section
 students enjoying writing
 unmotivated students are more motivated and the less confident are more confident
 reading and especially writing skills have really blossomed during sequences
 seeing all of my students feel happy and successful has been the most rewarding
What barriers did you encounter?
 the barriers I encountered were finding time to meet, finding others to work with and having
access to professional development resources (buying all of the books myself)
Next steps:
 moving towards using the ASK assessment tool
 continue to read about mindsets and the power of language
 continue to reflect and make changes to my practice as I go
 support with time to meet and money for books
 continuing to use learning communities within the classroom
 continued collaboration with colleagues around SMARTLearning through the use of flex funds and
ideally by the close proximately of our classrooms
School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
Page 9
REFLECTION AND FUTURE PLANNING
COLLECTING THE DATA:
This year we focused on collecting reflective data from staff. The following quotes summarize the power
in collaboration:
“Working with other teachers has renewed my desire to teach in a team environment,
which I have been missing.”
“The excitement and eagerness of the students and the significant improvement in engagement in discussions has
rejuvenated my approach to teaching – very exciting!”
Common responses around the benefits of collaboration were:
 working with colleagues is rejuvenating, motivating and time consuming
 time is needed to effectively meet and plan for new ways of teaching
 collaboration reinforces good practices and enables us to question ourselves
 whole-staff approach and commitment is required to implement school-wide change
 collaborative groups will continue next year because the learning is valuable to teachers and
students
Common responses around the improvements to student achievement were:
 new approaches as a result of teacher collaboration were engaging, motivating and exciting for
students
 conversations are richer
 writing is deeper in meaning
FUTURE PLANNING:
As we look towards the 2015-16 school year we have begun to plan for a school-wide approach to
improving school culture. The work our “Beyond Inclusion” team has done has created structures and
strategies to improve school culture through a new shared philosophy. Indirectly, but extremely valuable
to us, is the fact that an increase in teacher collaboration within our building has already improved the
collegiality and cohesiveness of our teaching staff.
Building on the positive results of working closely together for the purpose of improving instruction we
have profited from the optimistic views created by seeing the benefits of working together. Taking this
approach towards instructional practices this year, rather than just in regards to social responsibility and
self-regulation has been positive and productive.
Provincial assessments, school satisfaction surveys, report card marks and teacher assessment
information need to be considered before choosing next year’s goal. It is anticipated that it may shed
light on those areas where we are consistently successful and reflecting on data will help us narrow our
focus.
School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
Page 10
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
School Planning Council:
Lisa Edwards (Principal):
_______________________________________________
Tracey Foreman (Parent):
_______________________________________________
Simone Peters (Parent):
_______________________________________________
School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)