QUEEN’S PARK ELEMENTARY
330 Power Street, Penticton, B.C. V2A 5X2
Principal: Mr. S. Edwards
Telephone: (250) 770-7680
Fax: (250) 492-7901
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SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN (2014‐15) Queen’s Park Context Queen’s Park Elementary School provides education to approximately 217 students in Kindergarten through grade 5. Queen’s Park is fortunate to offer two full‐day Kindergarten Programs and host a very active Strong Start Centre. We value our strategic community partnerships with the Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs of Penticton, Big Brothers & Sisters of the Okanagan, Meals on Wheels, and OliveUs Education Society. Our partners support our mission and guiding principles that contribute to student success. Queen’s Park is supported by an involved and dedicated Parent Advisory Council (PAC). Through Community Links funding, Queen’s Park school offers an affordable Hot Lunch Program for students in grades 1‐5. In addition, Meals on Wheels provides the staffing and secures finances to offer our free breakfast program that runs before school each day. We continue to collaborate with Penticton & District Community Resource Society, Community for Kids, Success By 6 and School District No. 67 to open the Penticton Family Hub housed at Queen’s Park School. The focus of this initiative is to connect families to resources in a “One Stop Shop” mandate and to provide learning opportunities for parents and families. This is the first resource hub located at a school in Penticton. As a school community, we value an inclusive environment where all students are appreciated and welcomed for the strengths they bring to our school. We believe that all students can be successful by providing students with quality learning experiences that support academic success, social responsibility, and personal development. Based on the ministry results of the Foundational Skills Assessment (FSA) for grade 4 students, through our various reading initiatives, we have transformed our student reading achievement. The 2009‐10 FSA results revealed that 45% of our grade 4 students were Fully Meeting or Exceeding reading expectations. Our results from this year’s FSA results indicate that 95% of our grade 4 students are Fully Meeting or Exceeding reading expectations. School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
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Our Journey READING INQUIRY QUESTION ‐ 2009‐2010 While implementing specific structures and strategies through a collaborative approach, what indicators demonstrate that students are practicing and improving their reading at Queen’s Park? READING INQUIRY QUESTION #1 – 2010‐2011 By consolidating and augmenting Home Reading Programs, will a greater percentage of grade 1 & 2 students be meeting reading expectations? READING INQUIRY QUESTION #2 – 2010‐2011 How do we motivate and engage our emerging readers in class reading practices that in turn will improve their reading comprehension skills? READING INQUIRY CONNECTION 2011‐2012 With our continued focus on reading achievement, we will explore the connections of building literacy skills in collaboration with our Character Education Initiative ‐ “7 Habits of Happy Kids”? READING INQUIRY QUESTION 2012‐2013 If students access “Just Right Text” across the curriculum, will a greater percentage of our struggling readers develop the skills necessary to become improved readers? If we redesign our Leader in Me program by using a Lighthouse team approach to programming and direction setting will we see improvement in our targeted areas. School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
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RATIONALE: What evidence compelled us to ask this question? Due to change in administration for Queen’s Park and the fact that the school had embarked on a successful 5 year journey with their inquiry based in reading comprehension, this year seemed like a good time to go back to staff to determine, if there was something else the staff wanted to focus on or to determine how they wanted to move forward in their professional growth around student achievement in reading. As a staff it was very difficult to determine which we wanted to focus our energies on more: our reading comprehension goal or our Leader in Me program. The staff was very passionate about both of these topics and despite the fact that reading has been the focus for the last 5 years, there was still a belief that we didn’t want to let it go because we were concerned that if we diverted our focus, it might lead to a drop in success by our students. As the year progressed we took the time to evaluate what we had done, why it was effective, what needed more attention and where we should go next. Upon reflection we determined that a large reason for our success was due to the system of ability grouping all of our primary students, for one hour a day. This has proven to be an effective format because students are working together with other students at the same level. Teachers are able to narrow their focus to a specific zone which means the activities in the class can be differentiated for the entire time. Teachers are able to work with small groups in guided reading while at the same time the other students are working on activities that are exactly at their level without having to rotate through learning centers that might be more effective for readers slightly above or below their reading level, as would be the case in a regular class. Due to the success of our primary students our intermediate teachers were able to take more of a focus on deeper comprehension through Adrienne Gear’s Reading Powers. As mentioned earlier, the staff at Queen’s Park is very passionate about both the reading and Leader in Me culture. During the initial interviews between staff and administration, staff were asked, “If there was only one thing from the school that you could not live without, what would that be.” Typically, this question would lead to a variety of answers that are often divided along lines of intermediate and primary. In this case, every single staff member was adamant that the one thing we needed to keep and continue to grow was Steven Covey’s 7 Habits and Leader in Me program. All staff felt it was the single contributing factor to building a strong culture of student’s being respectful, learning to solve conflicts on their own, and believe in themselves in a deep meaningful way. As an administrator, it was very compelling to have 100% buy in from all staff, especially since it was an additional program done on teachers own time and not given the financial and school focus usually afforded to a school inquiry. After evaluating the merits of both paths, we were at a crossroads. We wanted to maintain our focus on reading since it is the backbone of learning and that as teachers we wanted to continue to strive for the most effective formats of teaching reading. However, we also believed that because so much of our job is teaching social/emotional skills and attributes we needed to continue to be purposeful in building a climate of trust, respect and safety. Finally, the staff agreed to use this year as a reflection and goal setting year for the Leader in Me program and return to our reading comprehension goal next year. We believed that if we were able to develop our systems and structures to a greater degree, we would be able to maximize our efficiency in programming and allow the program to be more self‐sustaining and require less monthly tinkering. School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
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ACTION PLAN Specific Steps to answer our question 1. Reflect and evaluate on what we have done and why. 2. Determine if the goals of the past still meet the needs of the school currently. 3. Determine a new set of goals and strategies to attain the goals. 4 Establish a system that will be able to maintain forward momentum despite being a secondary focus for the school. STRUCTURES AND STRATEGIES: For all students and our emergent readers 1. Create a lighthouse group to set direction and focus. Initiatives will be brought to the lighthouse team who will then evaluate the potential and effectiveness. These are the most passionate and are willing to put in their own time. 2. Look at ways of training the Lighthouse team so they are given the skills to interpret and implement the program based on the covey institutes belief system. 3. Develop a mission statement that will be the foundation of all decision making: a. Use the class and school mission statements as the key to goal setting and reflection for classroom work. 4. Create a decision making and feedback system that helps to ensure all decisions are aligned with our mission statement. ASSESSMENT PROCESS & TOOLS: What will we use to measure our success? 1. Track office referrals. 2. Track engagement of all students in leadership roles 3. Anecdotal reflections of staff 4. Anecdotal reflections of students 5. Anecdotal reflections of parents PROFESSIONAL LEARNING: How will we increase our capacity and collaboration?  Visit the Edmonton Leader in Me Symposium April 2015 ‐ This helped us realize the next steps we need to take to be more effective. We were able to visit schools and see a variety of ways initiatives were used that made sense to our community.  Lighthouse Training ‐ August 2015 ‐ this will provide the tools and framework to help support the lighthouse team. This will also help stabilize the system so it will continue to run effectively despite receiving less attention in the future.  All interested staff members will be provided the current edition of the Leader in Me book. School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
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RESOURCES: What do we currently have and what do we need?  Currently, our staff has a solid foundation of the principles involved in the Leader in Me and 7 habits program.  We have three staff who were given the original training.  We continue to build a repertoire of learning resources.  We are working with Brian Koning from the Covey Institute to help determine paths of funding and training.  We are looking to secure funding through grant applications and crowdsourcing to provide training for our Lighthouse team. EVIDENCE KEY FINDINGS: What did we find out?  Through our year‐long discussions and symposium visit we felt that our foundation in creating a culture around the 7 habits was strong. o We have a culture where the language is being used by all staff and students on the playground and in an academic setting. o All students understand the concepts behind the first 3 habits that have students see themselves in charge of their decisions. The older students are able to understand the complexity of the more sophisticated habits like “Seek First to Understand”.  We have many structures in place to promote teacher and student leadership within the school.  A recognizable shift has entered the parent mindset as well. What used to be primarily a reactive culture, where parents expected a punitive punishment; has shifted towards a common understanding around valuing all children, and a community that balances restorative practice with consequence. NARRATIVE: What successes are not reflected in the data? REFLECTION AND SUMMARY REFLECTIONS: What did we learn? How did it make a difference?  The lighthouse team transforms the program from a top down to bottom up design: o By having all initiatives go through the team, teachers are more inclined to take initiatives and commit to proposals.  Through our reflections we believe that we have done an admirable job promoting the 7 habits but need to be more explicit in connecting the 7 Habits to the concept of leadership.  Next year we would like to use the following quote as a key tenant of our leadership program that is supported by the 7 habits instead of having leadership support the 7 habits: “Leadership is communicating people’s worth and potential so clearly, they are inspired to see it in themselves.” School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)
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FUTURE PLANNING: Where do we go from here? Staff will use our Lighthouse training as a springboard for shared leadership for our Leader in Me program. School Planning Council: Name (Principal): ______________________________ Name (Parent): ______________________________ Name (Parent): ______________________________ Name (Parent): ______________________________ School District No. 67 (Okanagan-Skaha)