Developing Scaffolds for Successful Learning this School Year

 

"Children must be emotionally regulated before they can learn to read or write or do math...we can't punish a child out of trauma...we have to be emotionally regulated ourselves and sit calmly through their emotional re-regulation process before we can move to learning."  - Dr. Jody Carrington

"We are no longer educating learners for a stable and predictable world. The future will belong to those who are adaptable and able to apply (transfer) their learning to new situations. The future requires deep learning." - Harvey Silver & Jay McTighe

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Our first two weeks of school have been heavily focused on establishing routines and strategies, with all our students, related to handwashing/sanitizing, physical distancing and appropriate wearing of masks. These experiences have included merging strange, new expectations associated with these three health safety measures into everyday school routines such as working in classrooms, going to the washroom, eating lunch, participating in Phys. Ed. and Music classes, outdoor body breaks and recess, as well as entering and exiting the school.  There is no aspect of 'being in school' that looks or sounds much like what the 'being in school' experience was like prior to March, 2020.  These are routines we will continue to practice many, many more times as we integrate these new strategies into our everyday learning experiences.

Scaffolding these experiences into our teaching and learning is not anything we have had experience with before - these are new ways of doing and being for teachers and staff as much as they are for our students. We are still trying new strategies and approaches as we make sense of this new 'schooling' that is heavily influenced by health safety measures, and we are challenged to make sense of these new ways of being in school every day - even as we hold great care and attention to every detail. 

This is, for certain, the new story of 'school' we are writing this school year.  

Nonetheless, we are fully aware of the authentic work we are all here to do - to support all our students in being as successful as possible in learning. Every staff member is working hard to find the best possible ways to merge these new safety measures with effective, worthwhile and intentional learning for each and every child. This means we will also be writing different learning stories as well for 2020-21. 

What parents will notice...

• Perhaps the most significant thing parents are most likely to notice is that we are continually monitoring our health safety measures to ensure they are as effective as possible - and this means we are most likely to continue making small adjustments to how we are managing entries/exits, the office protocols, communicating with parents about students, classroom organization, etc. We will do our best to keep parents in the loop as currently as possible when we find we need to adjust school management strategies. 

• Parents have been their children's teachers for the past six months.  Particularly for the first few weeks of school, our goal is to develop as full an understanding as possible of the learning needs, strengths and challenges of each of our students. We will be looking to parents to offer us their insights into their children's learning over the past six months. To achieve this, parents will be receiving a student insight questionnaire the week of September 21 - 25, inviting them to share any pertinent information about student learning and return to classroom teachers. This will be most helpful in ensuring we have complete understandings of students' learning needs.

• Due to COVID-19 restrictions on having people in our building who are not students or staff, we will not be able to host our usual Open House events the third week in September. Instead, there will be a series of virtual Open House opportunities offered to parents on September 24, 2020. Registration for these virtual events will open up at 7:00 am on Saturday, September 19, 2020 through CBE Messenger. Part of the virtual Open House will relate to whole school information sharing with Mrs. Kinsman and Mr. Strand, and part will connect parents and students with teachers for specific classroom information. We are not in a position yet to host student sharing conferences, given the constraints of not having worked with the students for six months and the slow progress towards getting to know our learners we are making as we also integrate significant practices of health safety routines into every day. We appreciate parents' sharing information about students' experiences as learners this school year, and we invite parents to capture their understandings of their children on the student insight questionnaires. 

• With the significant restrictions on student movement and flexible student engagements, including field trips and artist in residency experiences as well as student inquiries we would typically encourage students to pursue, parents will find there are constraints on active learning, collaboration, investigations and creative pursuits we typically would champion in our school, as well as the numerous Student Led Learning Walks and other Celebrations of Learning when we would typically welcome parents to the school to share in their child's learning successes.  The prospect of students either returning to in-school learning from Hub learning for February 1, or possibly the opposite as well, also creates significant boundaries around the usual flexible learning provocations and actions teachers would usually encourage for student learning. Parents will find learning topics and actions are less diverse in nature, while still deeply engaging for students, as they practice, develop and polish their skills, understandings and practical applications of new knowledge.

• As the school year progresses, we are planning to try and build in as many 'school-like' experiences for our children as possible - including Coulee School, community walks, outdoor learning,  virtual Peace Assemblies to showcase student learning and a host of other familiar experiences that will, we believe, appeal to the children as comfortable and engaging practices they are well-acquainted with and welcome with their usual joy and anticipation. 

• There will be many 'differences' this school year as we move forward in the coming months. We are building strong scaffolds for students and parents, seeking to stay connected as educators and parents as we support students in developing their best possible learnings within the current constraints and challenges. We have a highly innovative, creative and motivated school staff and we are confident we will be able to support and elevate student learning regardless of the external impacts on our learning environment.

Completely aside from the COVID-19 challenges, we are ready and excited to engage in the best possible learning experiences with your children in the 2020-21 school year!  We are becoming re-acquainted with your children, astonished by their growth and maturity after six months without seeing them. Spending our days informally assessing where they are academically, gathering information from parents as their most recent teachers, and beginning to build profiles of students' academic strengths and challenges will occupy most of our learning time during the first six weeks of school and inform our next steps for learners. Simultaneously, teachers and staff will be developing personalized, active learning strategies for each child that will nudge their growth as learners towards a highly successful year of learning.

So...we have constraints; we are developing scaffolds. Yes, this school year will be different, yet remain a highly positive year of learning for all students as we look forward - hopefully past COVID-19 - and intentionally position our learners towards a well-supported, successful year of intentional, thoughtful learning. 

Lorraine Kinsman, Principal

Eric Harvie School