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Lavington Elementary School is nestled in the beautiful District of Coldstream, just east of Vernon, British Columbia. It is a rural school of approximately 156 students from Kindergarten to Grade 7. At Lavington Elementary School our mission is to develop skills, attitudes and knowledge, which enable all students to develop to their full potential as individuals and as responsible citizens in a changing world. We believe that encouraging our students to be caring and compassionate individuals within the school and the community will ensure that these values will be embedded instrinically throughout their lives.
Lavington Elementary School offers students a strong academic program, an outstanding music program that includes choir, as well as several intramural and extramural activities. Lavington promotes the use of technology in all subject areas. Our school is well equipped with current technology that is utilized for learning by all students. We believe strongly in inclusion for our special needs students. As a school community we follow a Belief System that was created by students and staff.
Lavington Elementary School benefits from a strong community connection. Students have access to a beautiful park which has an outdoor pool, tennis courts, dog park and a covered picnic area. The community provides an outdoor skating rink which is located across from the school and is available during school hours. Parents and community members are invaluable partners in the well-rounded experience provided for our students. Long standing traditions are an important part of the Lavington community. May Day is celebrated every year and is a historical event that is valued and celebrated by the entire community. This year will mark the 70th May Day celebration.
Our community garden is located adjacent to the school and is a valued source of learning. All of our students participate in cultivating the garden. Each fall we harvest the vegetables and every student is involved in preparing ‘Stone Soup’ which we share as a school. This past school year each student created a tile to represent the learning the community garden provides. There is one mural hanging in the garden and one in the entrance of the school.
Art is also a focus for our school. Art is integrated in most curriculum areas and evidence of the students artwork is represented throughout the school.
At Lavington we pride ourselves on being a “Caring and Compassionate Community of Learners”.
At Lavington Elementary School all students are presented with a variety of enriching ways to both learn and present their learning. Students learning is based on their unique learning needs and the staff at Lavington focus their practice based on the student’s developmental growth. Students are afforded many different learning opportunities that ensures growth across a learning continuum and encourages curiosity, critical thinking and experiential learning. Our Lavington Community Garden is a source of higher level learning that engages every child in our school. Our indigenous plants which is located at the front of our school, focuses on cross-curricular areas of learning with emphasis on Aboriginal Education. Every child at Lavington Elementary is provided with opportunities to learn, succeed and most importantly, to discover and nature their passion.
There are several key aspects that work well at Lavington Elementary. As a staff we are proud that we work together as a team on a daily basis and we work collaboratively to ensure that our students receive the best education possible. Communication is another key aspect that works well in our school. All staff understand that communicating with parents and each other is critical to a successful educational experience for every child in our school. All staff follow consistent language that is based on our Belief System Matrix. Every student receives the same message from all staff members. Focus on community is embedded in our school culture.
Continuing to focus on being a caring and compassionate learner. At Lavington we are encouraging students to move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset on a daily basis. Inquiry based projects is a focus across all grade levels. Math continues to be a school goal and we are incorporating the core competencies in all areas of the curriculum.
In the 2017/2018 school year, we completed our school goal on Math and started to look at where we needed to focus on as a school to improve student learning. Through observations during the school year, we noticed that our students were having difficulty with their writing. Our hunch was proven correct by our FSA scores in writing that year. In grade 4, 1 out of 19 students were fully meeting or exceeding in writing. In grade 7, 5 out of 27 students were fully meeting or exceeding in writing. As a result, we launched a school wide goal that looked at improvement in the area of writing.
Lavington Elementary School is nestled in the beautiful District of Coldstream, just east of Vernon, British Columbia. It is a rural school of approximately 156 students from Kindergarten to Grade 7. At Lavington Elementary School our mission is to develop skills, attitudes and knowledge, which enable all students to develop to their full potential as individuals and as responsible citizens in a changing world. We believe that encouraging our students to be caring and compassionate individuals within the school and the community will ensure that these values will be embedded instrinically throughout their lives.
Lavington Elementary School offers students a strong academic program, an outstanding music program that includes choir, as well as several intramural and extramural activities. Lavington promotes the use of technology in all subject areas. Our school is well equipped with current technology that is utilized for learning by all students. We believe strongly in inclusion for our special needs students. As a school community we follow a Belief System that was created by students and staff.
Lavington Elementary School benefits from a strong community connection. Students have access to a beautiful park which has an outdoor pool, tennis courts, dog park and a covered picnic area. The community provides an outdoor skating rink which is located across from the school and is available during school hours. Parents and community members are invaluable partners in the well-rounded experience provided for our students. Long standing traditions are an important part of the Lavington community. May Day is celebrated every year and is a historical event that is valued and celebrated by the entire community. This year will mark the 70th May Day celebration.
Our community garden is located adjacent to the school and is a valued source of learning. All of our students participate in cultivating the garden. Each fall we harvest the vegetables and every student is involved in preparing ‘Stone Soup’ which we share as a school. This past school year each student created a tile to represent the learning the community garden provides. There is one mural hanging in the garden and one in the entrance of the school.
Art is also a focus for our school. Art is integrated in most curriculum areas and evidence of the students artwork is represented throughout the school.
At Lavington we pride ourselves on being a “Caring and Compassionate Community of Learners”.
At Lavington Elementary School all students are presented with a variety of enriching ways to both learn and present their learning. Students learning is based on their unique learning needs and the staff at Lavington focus their practice based on the student’s developmental growth. Students are afforded many different learning opportunities that ensures growth across a learning continuum and encourages curiosity, critical thinking and experiential learning. Our Lavington Community Garden is a source of higher level learning that engages every child in our school. Our indigenous plants which is located at the front of our school, focuses on cross-curricular areas of learning with emphasis on Aboriginal Education. Every child at Lavington Elementary is provided with opportunities to learn, succeed and most importantly, to discover and nature their passion.
There are several key aspects that work well at Lavington Elementary. As a staff we are proud that we work together as a team on a daily basis and we work collaboratively to ensure that our students receive the best education possible. Communication is another key aspect that works well in our school. All staff understand that communicating with parents and each other is critical to a successful educational experience for every child in our school. All staff follow consistent language that is based on our Belief System Matrix. Every student receives the same message from all staff members. Focus on community is embedded in our school culture.
Continuing to focus on being a caring and compassionate learner. At Lavington we are encouraging students to move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset on a daily basis. Inquiry based projects is a focus across all grade levels. Math continues to be a school goal and we are incorporating the core competencies in all areas of the curriculum.
In the 2017/2018 school year, we completed our school goal on Math and started to look at where we needed to focus on as a school to improve student learning. Through observations during the school year, we noticed that our students were having difficulty with their writing. Our hunch was proven correct by our FSA scores in writing that year. In grade 4, 1 out of 19 students were fully meeting or exceeding in writing. In grade 7, 5 out of 27 students were fully meeting or exceeding in writing. As a result, we launched a school wide goal that looked at improvement in the area of writing.
Checking
Have we made a big enough difference?
Checking
Have we made a big enough difference?
This is a question that we will continue to ask ourselves throughout this year and possibly in future years.
Scanning
What's going on for our learners?
Scanning
What's going on for our learners?
We know that our students are good readers. This was confirmed by our Director of Instruction, Student Learning when she emailed us this message about our reading results: “Your data for your school is quite remarkable….it is the lowest needs by student number in reading….while I know you have fewer kids…percentage wise it is still very good at 10% of your one to threes not yet meeting.”
While we are extremely pleased with our reading results in grades one to three, we still wanted to ensure that our students continue to excel in reading, which is the foundation of learning. For that reason, we have put almost $5000 worth of books into our Home Reading program to ensure that students have access to a large selection of engaging books to read at home each night with their parents. Here is a picture of our Home Reading program:
Our staff spent about four months taking a long look at what we’re seeing in our school from our students. We looked at the current programs we have in place and where we might go as a school. Teachers came forward with guiding questions. The topic areas included: healthy lifestyle choices, environmental issues, writing, collaboration, social responsibility and self-regulation. Please see the questions that our teachers came up with below:
1. In what way will participation in a school garden project promote an increase in healthy food choices?
2. How do our choices in food and household products impact our personal and educational health?
3. How do our current consumption and disposal habits impact people and the planet?
4. What effect will a school wide focus on self-regulation and executive functioning have on improving behaviour and academic achievement?
5. What effect will a school wide writing program have on student and teacher learning?
6. How do we plan, work, and teach collaboratively with other teachers and members of the learning community to implement technology and enhance inquiry based learning opportunities?
7. What growth would we see in our students and staff with a school focus on “Unhelpful/Helpful Thinking” Styles.
8. What growth would we see in our students and staff with a school focus on Personal Awareness and Social Responsibility, using a First Nations Medicine Wheel (Circle of Life) model.
9. How can we help our students develop their self-regulation and executive functioning skills?
10. If the staff as a whole work together to support, guide and facilitate activities (such as leadership groups) specifically designed for the grade seven students in our school, can we help that group have a more positive and socially successful year?
11. By specifically working with students to identify and teach and encourage and support socially responsible traits, can we impact the overall social experience at our school (and maybe the grade sevens as a side effect!)?
Focusing
Where are we going to place our attention?
Focusing
Where are we going to place our attention?
After many discussions and observing our students for a period of months, we decided to move forward with a writing focus. One of the pieces of data that helped us was when we saw our writing results in the grade 4 and 7 Foundation Skills Assessment. One out of 19 grade 4 students were fully meeting or exceeding in writing and 5 out of 27 grade 7 students were fully meeting or exceeding in writing. We know that writing is an area that our students can use extra support in.
Developing a Hunch
What's leading to this situation?
Developing a Hunch
What's leading to this situation?
The school was focused on Mathematics and the development of our community garden over the past number of years. As a result, our focus on writing may have dropped a little bit because of the large amount of work the staff was doing toward the other two initiatives.
Learning
How and where will we learn more about what to do?
Learning
How and where will we learn more about what to do?
To learn about things that we can do, we met in grade groups and reviewed writing programs and broke down the components that we need to teach in writing. This picture shows just some of the writing programs that we reviewed as a group:
Taking Action
What will we do differently?
Taking Action
What will we do differently?
One of the things we’ve implemented this year is a return to completing whole class writes three times a year. We met and shared our results from our first write in order to define the areas of writing that we need to work on at each grade. This is a sample of the template that each classroom is using to record their data from their whole class writes.
