• Feedback from Students
“My role, as teacher, is to evaluate the effect I have on my students.”
― John A.C. Hattie, Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning
To meet our goal of giving EVERY CHILD, EVERY OPPORTUNITY, we regularly reflect upon our teaching practices to meet our stated mission of providing exceptional care for every child.
As a school we send surveys out to our school families to inform us of what the community feels is working well and areas that are not, in relevant terms, as strong. In the same way that we’d seek information from parents about school wide topics, teachers seek information from Elementary students about classroom practice. It’s important to ‘practice what we preach’ and regularly seek information from students to both build and maintain a strong environment for learning. Findings, such as that of recognised educational researcher John Hattie, inform us that to maximise our impact upon learning we need to be good listeners and to act upon the results we are given. Teachers directly seek responses from their students to their teaching with questions such as:
‘Tell me one thing that you especially like about this class.”
“Tell me one thing that you would like to change in this class.”
“Tell me something that another teacher does that you find especially helpful.”
I hope all of our families had a very rewarding holiday. I know our students certainly have come back recharged and full of enthusiasm. There are almost eight weeks left to the school year and your children’s teachers are ambitiously working to make the most of the time left in the school year to create wonderful learning opportunities for all of their students. As parents the removal of most Covid restrictions should make it easier for you to join in on many of the events you will be invited to over the next few months. I hope you will be able to come to one or more occasions such as Monday Assemblies, the Fifth Grade Poetry Café on April 29 and especially the May 19th Open House Evening. Information will continue to be posted for parents in the class blogs and the Community Hub.
• Spanish Classes
Our elementary Spanish teacher, Paula Santacruz, will have her final day of school next Tuesday. She is leaving the school year early as her husband returns to Australia to take up a new job. I want to thank Paula for her wonderful work in teaching Spanish. She successfully conveyed her love of the language to her students and was instrumental in establishing our differentiated language program beginning in grade 5. To replace Mrs Santacruz, Cristi Sanz will take the grade 5/6 classes, and Helen Perrell and Laura Pinzon will work together to instruct the kindergarten through grade 4 classes.
Don Newbury,
Elementary Principal
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