To better understand the PLC process and how it works at Strathmore Secondary College.

 Professional Learning Communities will involve teachers collaborating on best practice to improve student achievement at Year 7 and Year 8.
 Faculty Focus Teams will involve teachers collaborating on curriculum and learning tools to improve student achievement at Year 9 and Year 10.
 Each team will be focusing on improving their practice to improve student learning. Both are guided by norms that each member agrees to.
 Differences: PLCs have SMART goals set by the team. FFTs have an objective and agenda set by the faculty coordinator.

PLC groups
 Year 7 – TE (convener), DP, TT, VP
 Year 7 – CF (convener), DU, CD, KM
 Year 8 – TH (convener), PT, FV, TL
 Year 8 – JP (convener), MN, GY, EC
FFT
 Year 9 – LS, BA, PN
 Develop rubric for persuasive writing (Present at fac meeting Feb 19
 Moderate and collect samples of work.
 Year 10 – GV, OS, NK
 Develop a rubric for Justice (Present to faculty at meeting Feb 19)
 Moderating and collecting samples of work on Justice (distribute to Year 10 team)
 Develop a rubric for Cartoon Analysis (Present to fac meeting March 26)
 English Language – DN, LD

 Establishing team norms
 Setting SMART goals

 Underpin all good collaborative work
 Ensures all team members contribute and are accountable
 Allows us to develop commitment and trust with one another

 Everyone needs to be clear on the commitments made to each other regarding how the team will work together.
 Commitments need to be stated as explicit behaviors.

 The norms have clarified our expectations of one another.
 All members of the team participated in creating the norms. All voices were heard.
 The norms are stated as commitments to act in certain ways.
 All members have commitment to honoring the norms.
 Team must establish a process for addressing violations of the norms

 In order to make our team meetings positive and productive experience for all members, we make the following collective commitments to each other:
 Begin and end out meeting on time and stay fully engaged during each meeting
 Maintain a positive attitude at team meetings – no complaining unless we offer a better alternative.
 Listen respectfully to each other
 Contribute equally to the workload
 Make decisions based on consensus
 Encourage one another to honor out commitments and candidly discuss our concerns when we feel a member is not living up to those commitments
 Fully support each other’s efforts to improve student learning.
 Always take minutes and send them to DP.
 Begin meeting by revisiting norms and previous minutes.

 Strategic and specific
 Measurable
 Attainable
 Results orientated
 Time bound

 SMART Goal:
 Current reality: Last year, 85% of our students met or exceeded the target score of 3 on each strand of out summative writing task.
 SMART Goal: This year, at least 90% of our students will meet or exceed the target score of 3 on each strand of the summative writing prompt.

 By the end of the year students will be able to:
 Develop a plan for writing.
 Focus on a central argument.
 Support an argument with logic, reason and evidence.
 Use words, phrases, and sentences to create fluency and cohesion.
 Provide a concluding statement and section that supports the central argument.
 Edit final copies for grammar , capitalization, punctuation and spelling

 In order to achieve our SMART goal, we will:
 Clarify the essential writing skills.
 Develop monthly common writing prompts
 Agree on criteria by which we will judge the quality of student writing
 Practice applying criteria consistently to establish consistency in grading.
 Establish the proficiency target of 3 out of 4.
 Identify examples for each stage of the rubric
 Share standards, rubric, and samples with students, and teach them how to apply the rubric to their writing.

 Establish and agree to team norms (needs to be emailed to faculty heads after first meeting)
 Revisit the purpose of PLC – What are the four essential questions?
 Decide on how notes for each meeting will be taken
 Begin thinking about SMART goals.

 Decide on SMART goals
 Email copy to faculty head