School Focus: Creating a sense of belonging and connectedness

Actions

Identified Gap or Problem

Effectiveness of Actions

Adjustments and Adaptions

What targeted actions are being taken?

What gap or problem does this action aim to address? Why was this particular action chosen?

Based on quantitative and qualitative data, how effectively has this action addressed the identified gap or problem?

How will we move forward accordingly? What are our next steps?

Intentionally creating a sense of belonging for staff by providing opportunities for cross-curricular collaboration.

We noticed that teachers often were isolated in their work. The goal was to create intentional opportunities to build teacher capacity, fostering professional growth through peer support and collaboration.

We held 3 sessions to bring teachers from all curricular areas together. Over the course of the year more than 20 teachers participated in the 3 sessions to share ideas, brainstorm interdisciplinary approaches, and build capacity. The sessions have resulted in teachers having the time to try different strategies and share back with the group on strengths and challenges to further hone their skills. The sessions also provided mentorship opportunities for beginning teachers to work with experienced teachers through collaborative lesson development, observation, and feedback.

As the next step, we will be focusing this collaboration specifically on grade 8 skill building. The intention is to create consistent and ongoing opportunities for teachers to work together and target social-emotional learning and executive functioning skills for grade 8 students as they transition to high school.