Action Plan for Learning
School Name: Kwayhquitlum Middle School
School Goal: Social Emotional Learning
School Year: 2015-16
Goal / Inquiry
Student learning
To support students in their social-emotional learning and development by building
capacity for self-awareness of emotions and identification of emotional vocabulary.
Rationale
1-3 reasons for choosing
goal
Students that have an established and effective set of social-emotional skills provide a
foundation for achieving school and life success. Research has shown that when the core
competence of social-emotional learning is higher, students stay in school longer, have
higher academic achievement, and have less mental health issues.
As per our Safe Schools and Satisfaction Survey (grade 7), student record feeling safe at school
(84% reported feeling very safe or safe at school, Safe Schools survey). In addition, we noticed
students have an overall feeling of connectedness within the social group (81% reported feeling a
very high or high belonging to their peer group, Safe Schools survey); however, they have lower
trust levels with their peers. As school is a social place, students engage with peers and teachers in
order to develop their social-emotional competencies, but not always in positive ways.
Thus, at Kwayhquitlum Middle we recognize the need to provide the learning
environment that fosters the development of emotional literacy. This involves being
aware of ones emotions, managing them, and finding ways to express them constructively in
order to handle stress, control impulses, and motivate oneself, all critical attributes to school and
life success. Creating a supportive, trusting environment for students in which the competencies
are explicitly taught and practiced will build resiliency, belonging, and interpersonal/intrapersonal
skills.
References and sources to
support actions



Planned Actions
Continuing practices
working well (1-3)
 What will we do
differently? (1-3)
 How will we provide for
staff development and
collaboration?
www.casel.org
Broader Measures of Success: Social Emotional Learning, by Dr. Stuart Shanker
(2014)
Safe and Caring Schools framework (SD43)
We have established a Social-Emotional Learning committee to guide our Action Plan for
Learning emotional literacy implementation. The committee has established several
components to support:
First, the SEL committee is planning professional development/collaborative opportunities
for staff, including support by Marna MacMillan and Miriam Miller. The committee
reports regularly and gets feedback from staff during monthly staff meetings. Strategies
based on the RULER approach have been implemented by teachers on the committee
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 How will we involve
parents?
 How will we involve
students?
 How will we monitor
progress and adjust
actions?
Recognizing
emotions in self/others; Understanding causes and consequences of emotions; Label
emotions accurately; Expressing emotions accurately; Regulating emotions effectively).
with invitation for other staff to observe and reflect (RULER approach:
Parents were involved via newsletter updates, PAC meetings, and a parent information
night with Miriam Miller.
Our second planned action involves a pilot project with 2 school teams with restorative
practitioner, Alex Larson, demonstrating effective community circles within those
classrooms. Although a few classrooms already use community circles in one format or
another, our hope is that all or a majority of classrooms will use the practice of
community circles to build safe, caring classroom communities. Students have provided
valuable feedback to classrooms involved in community circles, many stating it is a
positive opportunity to share about their learning environments and that they would like
to have them more frequently than the scheduled once a week timeframe.
Our third planned action involves the agreement of all staff around the use of creating a
Classroom Emotional Intelligence Charter at the beginning of the 2015-16 school year.
The purpose of the charter is to co-create with students classrooms that are safe, caring,
well-managed, participatory learning environments. The process is recommended to take
place over a period of time, and as the year progresses, change portions to reflect new
emotions, behaviours, etc. Through the guidance of Miriam Miller, staff have begun their
own process of creating a Staff charter in preparation of leading this in individual
classrooms.
o Backup Documentation
Kway Middle SchoolSafe Schools Report 2014.pdf
SD43 MDI Report
2014-15 Kwayhquitlam Middle.pdf
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Documentation of learning
Key evidence of change
 How did your actions
make a difference?
 Choose 1-3 pieces of
evidence to demonstrate
the impact your actions
have had on student
learning to meet your
goal.
 Documentation could
include video, survey
results, performance
standard data, anecdotal
evidence, work samples,
etc.
As the school year has progressed, we have seen that our actions are beginning to make a
difference.
First, staff have been much more intentional in their actions related to social-emotional
learning, at classroom, team and school-wide levels. There has been a noticeable
increase in the discussions around social-emotional learning on a casual basis and
structured format (e.g. staff meetings), including team meeting minutes showing the
action plans of teams to support students in this area. There has been greater
collaboration amongst teachers and administration with Learning Services staff and
outside facilitators, such as Marna MacMillan, Alex Larson, and Miriam Miller.
Second, there have been anecdotal reports to support growth of emotional literacy at
Kway. Classrooms that have been experimenting with community circles and are part of
the pilot project have had groups of students solve intense emotional situations using the
circle structure taught in the classroom. Staff members participating with community
circles note that students feel more connected to each other, have greater understanding
of the impact upon others of their actions, and strategies dealing with intrapersonal
conflict, such as gossip, exclusion, etc. Feedback given by students and parents indicate
students are developing core competencies of social-emotional learning as a result, such
as empathy towards others when hurtful actions take place. Students report they enjoy
the community circles and would like them to occur more often.
Backup Documentation
Reflection Highlights
 Where are we now?
 What are some patterns
emerging?
 What surprised you?
 What conclusions /
inferences might you
draw?
 How does this inform
potential next steps?
As this is the first year of our school goal focusing on social-emotional learning, we are
pleased with our progress to date. Our major intent was to get a clearer sense of
direction in terms of which SEL competency to focus on. We discovered that we need to
develop a greater capacity for students' self-awareness in recognizing their emotions,
thoughts, and influence on behaviour, specifically in the area of supporting students'
development of emotional vocabulary.
As we proceeded, we have found it easier to develop these strategies by working with a
smaller group of teachers and students, rather than the entire school community all at
once. There have been opportunities for staff involved to share highlights of what has
gone well with other staff, creating casual conversations about supporting socialemotional learning of students.
For next year, our next steps involve continuing to develop the structure of and belief in
community circles and the classroom emotional intelligence charter, as guided by our
social-emotional committee. Our goal is to support students' becoming more self-aware
about themselves so they can understand their emotions, thoughts, and actions across a
variety of contexts. We realize not all staff are equally comfortable or skilled in carrying
this out. At the beginning of the year, in order to establish a baseline of staff use of SEL
strategies, we completed an informal survey of teachers and teams in their use of
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strategies to support the five SEL competences (see SEL survey handout). We intend to
continue supporting the development of teachers in this area through professional
development with Miriam Miller and Alex Larson. We will monitor how effective and
widespread the use of social-emotional learning strategies are with teachers and teams by
repeating the SEL strategies survey next fall for comparisons.
Backup Documentation
CASEL diagram SEL
strategy use survey.pdf
(Delete this section if Literacy is your main goal)
Literacy Data
Attach the following :
2014-15 Classroom
Overall Language Arts
 Classroom Assessment
Assessments .pdf
Grade 2015 Kwayquitlum.pdf
 School Assessment
 FSA results
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2014-15 FSA Results
2014-15 FSA Results
Reading ~ Kway Middle.pdf
Writing - Kway Middle.pdf
Signatures
School Name: Kwayhquitlum Middle
School Goal: SEL
School Year: 2015-16
Submitted by School Planning Council:
Title
Name
Principal
Parent
Parent
Parent
Recommended by Assistant Superintendent:
Assistant Superintendent
Board and Superintendent Approval:
Board Chair
Judy Shirra
Superintendent
Patricia Gartland
Print this page, have it signed by
School Planning Council, scan it and
attach it here
Page 5 of 5
Signature