January 12

1.  Early Years 

Fair Start Training:  This will take place on Tuesday, January 20, 2015 from 1:30-3:00 via Adobe Connect and Teleconference.  Please see the email that I sent out on Saturday, January 3.

Superior Speech Session with Karen Figliomeni – voluntary participation for K-2 teachers, ECEs and those EAs working with early years students – Monday, March 9, 2015 from 1:30-3:30 via Adobe Connect. This session is meant to support staff in developing approaches to assist students in speech development in the classroom.

Early Development Instrument (all SK students)Training and Completion: This will take place on Friday, February 13. We will have a short training session followed by time to complete the EDI.  There is funding to release teachers to complete the EDI; funding which is based upon the number of SK students in the classroom. Please note that ECEs will NOT be involved in this process this year as the researchers are ensuring additional validity by only having teachers administer this tool. The Ministry of Education is now heavily involved in the EDI as it is being implemented throughout the province this year.  More information will be shared with you when we are together on January 19.

Kindergarten Transition to School Plans – due Friday, February 27 (or Saturday, February 28) to me. Remember to send Transition to School Plans for Students with Special Needs to Nancy and Kathleen as well.

2. Report Cards  Please remind your teaching staff to verify their report card set up no later than Friday, January 16 (the window opens on Monday, January 12).  Advise Raj of any challenges.

3.  For those of you who have ECEs in your building, the draft ECE Performance Appraisal has gone to Raylene for input.  As soon as I hear back from her, I will be scheduling a teleconference for us to review the document to ensure that you have an opportunity to ask questions. This document was reviewed by Heidi last year for principal input; at that time we also decided to pilot the document so that we could identify challenges. It is my hope to have at least two principals use this document this year (we need to look at the ECE PA Schedule to determine who will use it).  More to come!

4.  Homework Practices:  Just a reminder to continue to become increasingly familiar with the homework practices that are having an impact on student learning in your building.

5.  Thanks to those who have sent in their Registration Packages with the information on how they use the Freedom of Information forms.  We will continue to collect those until January 30 (some are bringing the package).

6. Please be sure to access the resources under the School Learning Plan page of this blog site as you begin to prepare for the District Support processes. Remember, District Support Visits are Assessment for Learning; they are about applying the criteria from your SLP and giving feedback based on that criteria (and they become Assessment as Learning as you and your staff engage in self-assessment). Please begin to remind your staff regularly that these visits are for feedback (assessment for learning) only.  They are “for learning” thus the feedback questions are designed to have teams inquire even deeper into their theory of action/collaborative inquiry. A large part of the visit will be us meeting with students to ask for their opinions and thoughts about their school and specifically, growth mindset and questions linked to your SLP.   We are moving further into visits that really give us a picture of the impact…rather than surface level evidence we are digging deeply so that our feedback can be valuable.

Thanks to Angela for volunteering to join Shari and I in Manitouwadge for this Full Support Visit.  As some of you are updating your plan document, please use the Requirements for the School Learning Plan document that is also under this site as it is a useful tool to ensure that the details necessary are contained in your plan.

7.  Learning Fairs – the dates have tentatively been set for Friday, May 8 (Leaders Learning Fair to share POP Evidence) and Friday, May 29 (Inquiry Learning Fair). Please mark your calendars and begin communication this with your staff.