We acknowledge that our school is located on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Syilx Nation. Since 1982 École Beairsto Elementary has been home to the Vernon School District’s early French immersion program. It is the largest single-track gr. 1-7 French immersion school in British Columbia and the largest elementary school in Vernon. At Ecole Beairsto we strive to create a sense of belonging for each child while learning in French.
The school has 600+ students, 26 divisions and a vibrant francophone culture. The school caters to a diverse population comprised of the entire school district. We are centrally located in Vernon on 27th Street, minutes walking distance from the downtown core. Our location gives many opportunities for walking field trips to the museum, outdoor skating, parks and art galleries. The building itself, a beautiful turn of the century brick edifice, is one of the oldest structures in Vernon, known originally as Vernon Central School (1905).
Depuis 1982, l’Ecole Beairsto est une école d`immersion française à voie unique. C`est la plus grande école élémentaire dans le district et la plus grande école à voie unique en Colombie-Britannique. En ce moment il y a plus que 600 élèves de la 1e à la 7e année.
At Ecole Beairsto students show their success in many ways. Student success looks different for each child. Each child is progressing at their own rate. Each child is happy and curious when feeling success. However, each path to success can be different.
Some examples of success are:
Students are happily engaged, challenged, students want to come to school, and students are self-regulated.
Students are safe, happy, kind, resilient, and curious.
Students feeling welcome and that they are a part of the class and school community. Knowing that they are citizens of the school, community and world.
Happy to speak French in a collaborative and positive manner.
Having knowledge and pride of their heritage.
Sense that they have a future.
Students feel they belong, know they are important and cared for.
Students are working to the best of their abilities, seeing growth, and the desire to pursue further learning.
Improving their foundational skill – exploring through the competencies and the First Peoples Principles of Learning.
The ultimate goal is for learners to employ the core competencies every day in school and in life, and for the core competencies to be an integral part of the learning in all curriculum areas. Core competencies are sets of intellectual, personal, social and emotional proficiencies that all students need to develop in order to engage in deep and life-long learning.
A Beairsto chaque élève est unique et a du potentiel. On aide chaque enfant à avoir du succès. On encourage chaque personne a vouloir apprendre, et apprécier les cultures de notre pays. Chaque enfant aime apprendre et sait communiquer et créer avec respect.
Our belief in celebrating the French culture unites staff and families alike, providing our students with a rich cultural immersion. The First Peoples principles of learning are included throughout the culture of the school with students presenting at assemblies and school wide events and learning. We also have guest speakers and are lucky to go out on the land to learn about the history of the place we live on and the Sylix people. Our Indigenous Support workers share ideas and ways to incorporate the principles with all teachers. The school houses are now based on the Four food chiefs. The children are learning about how names were given and what each food chief represents.
Our library has been transformed into a learning common incorporating literature and technological activities for our students. The room is vibrant and offers many opportunities for collaboration between teachers and students. The teacher librarian continues to improve the learning commons and is working on incorporating more maker-space and virtual field trips and honing the design for learning comfortably. We have a special spot for our indigenous book collection. Our teacher librarian collaborates with teachers in our school and in the district.
Our urban garden provides students an opportunity to connect with nature, to develop a sense of stewardship and responsibility outside of the classroom. Students also learn about plants native to the Okanagan and the water cycle in the garden. There is a special section in the garden for learning about local traditional plants. We are working on planting more trees, an outdoor learning area and more possibilities for students to use the outdoor spaces surrounding our building.
The variety of behavior support programs at our school include; Zones of Regulation, Roots of Empathy, Superflex, bucketfilling. The overall theme is to follow the golden rule and to be kind all while speaking French. 🙂 We have a team called `les mots gentils` that works on delivering notes to students. They deliver these notes and film some of them. These positive messages and kind notes are shared at assemblies and also on the announcements.
The School includes the stories of the Four Food chiefs of The Okanagan to help us learn more about being a better citizen and also to learn more about a part of the history of the Sylix and the importance of their stories. Our school emblem is now a coyote or Senklip and we strive to be smart like him. We were fortunate to work with David Wilson and he created a painting of a coyote for our school. This is in our front hallway as one enters along with a felt art piece of the story of creation as told by the Sylix.
Our daily “Radio Beairsto”, where student volunteers address the school over the PA in French and Sylixen. News items may include, the weather, saying of the week, song of the week and new Sylixen words – sometimes we also do an activity to practise the Sylixen language.
To build success for our students Beairsto has:
Teacher Collaboration by grade level to focus on the learning of our students and the support of each other
Collaboration at multi levels regularly to plan together
Meetings to delve deeper into the data
Give students more of a voice and platform to express their goals and needs
Extra EA time given to our students who are not yet meeting in reading or oral French out of Federal French Funds
Early targeted intervention and support for emergent learners in self-regulating as well as academic areas
Emotional and mental health support
Collaboration and a united approach from staff
School wide indigenous activities
Grade level indigenous activities
Buddy systems
Support for teachers to help with emotional programmes
Continue to work on our outdoor space to help with learning
Have clear expectations for oral French and a clear assessment
Review of assessment practices to help create more cohesion within grade groups and across levels
Increase opportunities to strengthen the classroom and schoolwide community- School community building through assemblies and other areas to help with celebrating success and common language.
We acknowledge that our school is located on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Syilx Nation. Since 1982 École Beairsto Elementary has been home to the Vernon School District’s early French immersion program. It is the largest single-track gr. 1-7 French immersion school in British Columbia and the largest elementary school in Vernon. At Ecole Beairsto we strive to create a sense of belonging for each child while learning in French.
The school has 600+ students, 26 divisions and a vibrant francophone culture. The school caters to a diverse population comprised of the entire school district. We are centrally located in Vernon on 27th Street, minutes walking distance from the downtown core. Our location gives many opportunities for walking field trips to the museum, outdoor skating, parks and art galleries. The building itself, a beautiful turn of the century brick edifice, is one of the oldest structures in Vernon, known originally as Vernon Central School (1905).
Depuis 1982, l’Ecole Beairsto est une école d`immersion française à voie unique. C`est la plus grande école élémentaire dans le district et la plus grande école à voie unique en Colombie-Britannique. En ce moment il y a plus que 600 élèves de la 1e à la 7e année.
At Ecole Beairsto students show their success in many ways. Student success looks different for each child. Each child is progressing at their own rate. Each child is happy and curious when feeling success. However, each path to success can be different.
Some examples of success are:
Students are happily engaged, challenged, students want to come to school, and students are self-regulated.
Students are safe, happy, kind, resilient, and curious.
Students feeling welcome and that they are a part of the class and school community. Knowing that they are citizens of the school, community and world.
Happy to speak French in a collaborative and positive manner.
Having knowledge and pride of their heritage.
Sense that they have a future.
Students feel they belong, know they are important and cared for.
Students are working to the best of their abilities, seeing growth, and the desire to pursue further learning.
Improving their foundational skill – exploring through the competencies and the First Peoples Principles of Learning.
The ultimate goal is for learners to employ the core competencies every day in school and in life, and for the core competencies to be an integral part of the learning in all curriculum areas. Core competencies are sets of intellectual, personal, social and emotional proficiencies that all students need to develop in order to engage in deep and life-long learning.
A Beairsto chaque élève est unique et a du potentiel. On aide chaque enfant à avoir du succès. On encourage chaque personne a vouloir apprendre, et apprécier les cultures de notre pays. Chaque enfant aime apprendre et sait communiquer et créer avec respect.
Our belief in celebrating the French culture unites staff and families alike, providing our students with a rich cultural immersion. The First Peoples principles of learning are included throughout the culture of the school with students presenting at assemblies and school wide events and learning. We also have guest speakers and are lucky to go out on the land to learn about the history of the place we live on and the Sylix people. Our Indigenous Support workers share ideas and ways to incorporate the principles with all teachers. The school houses are now based on the Four food chiefs. The children are learning about how names were given and what each food chief represents.
Our library has been transformed into a learning common incorporating literature and technological activities for our students. The room is vibrant and offers many opportunities for collaboration between teachers and students. The teacher librarian continues to improve the learning commons and is working on incorporating more maker-space and virtual field trips and honing the design for learning comfortably. We have a special spot for our indigenous book collection. Our teacher librarian collaborates with teachers in our school and in the district.
Our urban garden provides students an opportunity to connect with nature, to develop a sense of stewardship and responsibility outside of the classroom. Students also learn about plants native to the Okanagan and the water cycle in the garden. There is a special section in the garden for learning about local traditional plants. We are working on planting more trees, an outdoor learning area and more possibilities for students to use the outdoor spaces surrounding our building.
The variety of behavior support programs at our school include; Zones of Regulation, Roots of Empathy, Superflex, bucketfilling. The overall theme is to follow the golden rule and to be kind all while speaking French. 🙂 We have a team called `les mots gentils` that works on delivering notes to students. They deliver these notes and film some of them. These positive messages and kind notes are shared at assemblies and also on the announcements.
The School includes the stories of the Four Food chiefs of The Okanagan to help us learn more about being a better citizen and also to learn more about a part of the history of the Sylix and the importance of their stories. Our school emblem is now a coyote or Senklip and we strive to be smart like him. We were fortunate to work with David Wilson and he created a painting of a coyote for our school. This is in our front hallway as one enters along with a felt art piece of the story of creation as told by the Sylix.
Our daily “Radio Beairsto”, where student volunteers address the school over the PA in French and Sylixen. News items may include, the weather, saying of the week, song of the week and new Sylixen words – sometimes we also do an activity to practise the Sylixen language.
To build success for our students Beairsto has:
Teacher Collaboration by grade level to focus on the learning of our students and the support of each other
Collaboration at multi levels regularly to plan together
Meetings to delve deeper into the data
Give students more of a voice and platform to express their goals and needs
Extra EA time given to our students who are not yet meeting in reading or oral French out of Federal French Funds
Early targeted intervention and support for emergent learners in self-regulating as well as academic areas
Emotional and mental health support
Collaboration and a united approach from staff
School wide indigenous activities
Grade level indigenous activities
Buddy systems
Support for teachers to help with emotional programmes
Continue to work on our outdoor space to help with learning
Have clear expectations for oral French and a clear assessment
Review of assessment practices to help create more cohesion within grade groups and across levels
Increase opportunities to strengthen the classroom and schoolwide community- School community building through assemblies and other areas to help with celebrating success and common language.
Checking - Que se passe-t-il?
We continue to use evidence of learning data to determine if our actions are making a substantial difference for all of our learners.
Checking - Que se passe-t-il?
We continue to use evidence of learning data to determine if our actions are making a substantial difference for all of our learners.
Site-based school staff surveys
Student Learning Surveys
Oral French assessment based on the DELF and consistent across all grades (developing this)
FSA results and trends
PM Benchmarks
Using the competencies to self-reflect – (develop a reflection for different levels with common themes – ie how do I resolve conflict, How do I help my school, my family , etc)
Scanning - On se demande ...
What is happening for our learners?
Scanning - On se demande ...
What is happening for our learners?
Do our learners know what success looks like?
Are our students able to complete a self-reflection cycle? Helping to move their learning and self-awareness forward?
What do we notice about our indigenous vs our non-indigenous learners?
Do our learners feel engaged in their learning?
Do our learners persevere through challenges?
Are our learners self-regulated? What are their emotional needs and are they being met?
Do our learners feel safe and supported at school?
What is our achievement in Literacy?
How are our students showing their proficiency in French oral language?
Why is there a downward trend in our FSA data for students on track or exceeding?
Focusing - Que savons nous?
How do we know that our students are proficient in communicating and collaborating in French?
Are there any barriers to our Indigenous learners’ success? How can we create equity for our Indigenous learners?
How can we ensure our students have a toolbox of strategies to help with their mental health and personal safety?
Focusing - Que savons nous?
How do we know that our students are proficient in communicating and collaborating in French?
French assessment in development through collaboration with a committee of teachers at several grade levels.
Are there any barriers to our Indigenous learners’ success? How can we create equity for our Indigenous learners?
How can we ensure our students have a toolbox of strategies to help with their mental health and personal safety?
Developing a Hunch - Comment y arriver?
Professional learning and collaboration for staff
Common language and assessment
Reflecting on our Indigenous student success
Developing a Hunch - Comment y arriver?
Professional learning and collaboration for staff
What specific learning does our staff need to support our learners in our goal areas?
How can we effectively use staff collaboration time to focus in on developing the practices that will support all of our learners?
Common language and assessment
To support our students in social emotional learning, literacy and numeracy we believe having some specific common language across grade levels will be beneficial for all.
A new oral French assessment that is being created in June, will be used by teachers to assess our students. Teachers will need to become familiar with this assessment and we will begin collecting this data to see where to support students with their French oral language.
Reflecting on our Indigenous student success
How are our Indigenous learners doing? What is working for them and what is needed to support their success? How can we create equity for our Indigenous learners?
Learning - On apprend
Teacher Learning and Collaboration
What data do we use to inform our practice?
Reading together
Learning - On apprend
Teacher Learning and Collaboration
Teachers will be learning to use the new oral language assessment so we will need to time to meet in grade levels to discuss the results, reflect on how teachers are using the assessment. Teachers, in their grade groups, will need to make sure that they all have the same expectations for the students.
Grade level collaboration to work on strategies to support our learners in literacy, numeracy, and social emotional learning.
What data do we use to inform our practice?
Looking at the different types of data that we are able to use (classroom, PM Benchmarks, oral assessment, self-assessments, screeners, FSA’s, Learning Survey) and zeroing in on which ones will give us the best information. We want to look at comparing the FSA data from the same students in Grade 4 and then in Grade 7 to see any trends.
Reading together
Our staff will be using Ensouling Our Schools by Jennifer Katz with Kevin Lamoureux this year as our book to help guide us. This book looks at a universally designed framework for mental health, well-being, and reconciliation.
Taking Action - On y va!
What will we do?
Taking Action - On y va!
What will we do?
Develop oral French assessment.
Focus on getting our readers progressing and reflecting more.
Develop a scope and sequence for SEL and personal safety teaching to ensure that our children are learning skills to be happy, engaged, motivated and successful.
Engage our students in all areas of the learning process.
Ensure our school environment is equitable for all learners.
Have open conversations about our Indigenous students and how we can better support them.