Vision to Goal Setting
What is our Vision for Learning?
Vision Statement
Eastview School provides a safe and respectful environment. We foster the development of a community of responsible lifelong learners. At Eastview we want every student to:
- Feel safe
- Take responsibility for their learning and their behaviour
- Have a positive and helpful attitude
- Show respect for themselves, others and property
Eastview represents a community of learners engaging respectfully with an open mind and open heart.
Goal Statement
To recognize and celebrate equity, diversity, and inclusion in our community.
Objectives
To cultivate and nurture a student-centred approach to learning
- Teacher-led explicit instruction around what student-centred learning is to foster independence and passion for learning. Focus on meta-cognition for learning.
- Accessible equipment for primary and intermediate students (laptops, iPads).
- Technology to support learning (Minecraft, Canva, Talk to Text).
- Inquiry aligned project based learning (Token Island, dream projects).
- Focus on Early Literacy (English Language Assessment booklets).
- Primary book room updated with materials that support learning (diversity, equity, LGBTQ & inclusion).
- Heggerty Program (oral phonics). All primary students complete daily WORD PLAY lessons.
- Game Ready Program for Grade 5’s for 2022-2023.
- Self and peer assessment aligned with competencies around student driven learning.
- IEP’s, Teaching to Diversity Checklist, focus on differentiated instruction.
- School wide Core Competency activities (outdoor learning around literacy and creating with natural materials).
- Alignment with Partners for Inclusive Education (PIE) Committee to bring speakers for parent and staff development.
- Accessing outdoor learning opportunities. Participating in Cheakamus Centre Programs and utilizing neighbourhood facilities to promote students’ interest and passions.
- Focus on environmental stewardship (community clean up, clothing swap & bottle drive).
To foster and support a sense of belonging, mental health, and well-being
- Highlight and promote a sense of belonging visually throughout the school:
- Staff board (Sept 2022)
- Teacher-led explicit instruction and literary support around increasing awareness of a sense of belonging.
- Safe Bodies, Strong Kids program for primary students (Spring, 2023).
- Kids In the Know program for intermediate students (Spring, 2023).
- Second Step Program for all students.
- Partners for Inclusive Education (PIE) meetings featured guest speaker Sharon Selby (anxiety).
- Student Leadership opportunities to increase agency and voice in fostering equity, inclusion and diversity (lunch monitors, technology tutors).
- Buddy opportunities to create and foster connections between students.
- “Buddy Bench” learning for students.
- Staff buddy program to support new staff members to the school.
Planning & Implementation
What is our Action Plan?
Implementation Cycle
September/ October– Communication of School Plan with Staff at Staff Meetings and Parents at PAC Meetings
October– School Planning Network Meeting – at Sutherland Secondary with our Family of Schools
January/February/ March/ April – Continued implementation of strategies and building to align with our goals and objectives
April – School Planning Network Meeting – at the ESC with Handsworth Family of Schools
May/June– Review and Reflection
Members Responsible for Eastview School Plan
School Plan Working Group– Eastview Elementary’s working group consists of Administrators, Teachers, CUPE staff and our PAC representatives.
Staff– All Eastview staff members have a role and responsibility for the creation, implementation, and review of the school plan. The plan is a standing item on each monthly staff meeting.
Parents– The school plan is communicated to all parents in a variety of ways. Parents have the opportunity to discuss the school plan at the monthly PAC meetings. On occasions, the PAC Executive Committee is called upon to provide feedback and guidance to the school in relationship to the plan.
Students– Each year, students engage in dialogue around our goal and objectives. Guided discussion regarding their thoughts, opinions, and suggestions related to the school plan are vital to the successful planning of school initiatives.
Current Action Plan
Our School Plan working group met twice throughout the 2022-2023 school year.
The first session took place at Sutherland Secondary school in their library. Staff, parents and students from our Family of Schools met, round-table style, to plan for the year. Poster paper was hung around the room and stakeholders were invited to capture their thoughts on initiatives and activities happening within their school spaces. Our team added things that we currently do in our school or have been doing that aligned with the new strategic plan. Once that process was complete, we saw themes emerge among schools. Our student leadership team was well represented and a collective decision to highlight our environmental impacts on our community was adopted as a focus for this year.
Our second session took place at the ESC and included both the Sutherland and Handsworth Family of Schools. Each school was invited to share a brief highlight from their school year. We shared our vision for continued growth within our spaces as a collective and to align with our own school goal and objectives. We were particularly impressed with our student leaders who again spoke with confidence and integrity around our collective commitment to growing at Eastview.
- Objective: To cultivate and nurture a student-centred approach to learning
Action:
Supported grade group collaborative opportunities for cross-curricular focuses around learning.
- Current trends in teaching that support project-based inquiry and student-driven learning.
Visual display of student work in the hallways for all students.
Professional development opportunities to support the guidance and growth of student-centred learning.
Shared instructional practices in staff meetings.
- Primary grade teachers commit to expand literary experiences for our students through in-class use of the story workshop mobile cart to support early literacy oral story telling.
- Increased focus on outdoor learning opportunities.
- Alignment with our NVSD Strategic Plan for 2021-2031.
Objective: To foster and support a sense of belonging, mental health, and well-being
Action:
- Collaborative development of monthly themes to guide and facilitate the movement towards an authentic sense of belonging for students, staff and families.
- Visual representation within the school hallways and stairways to foster a sense of belonging.
- Increased focus on the diversity of students and families to foster authentic dialogue and voice within our students, staff and community.
- Continued commitment towards building professional development for staff around Social Emotional Learning.
- Alignment opportunities for the Partners for Inclusive Education (PIE), community and staff to build culture of care and compassion.
- Staff photo board as a welcome space for parents and visitors.
- School wide art projects on bulletin boards to support equity, diversity and inclusion.
- New materials added to our school library and primary book room to include BIPOC, LGBTQ and Indigenous content.
- Alignment with our NVSD Strategic Plan for 2021-2031.
Monitor Evaluate & Adapt
What are our Indicators of Progress?
What have we achieved?
With ongoing reflection on our progress with our school plan, we endeavour revisit, reflect and provide ongoing feedback regarding our progress thus far.
This year we continued to focus on ways that we could further calibrate our actions and initiatives with our school goal.
“To recognize and celebrate equity, diversity and inclusion in our community.”
Our commitment to SOAR (safety, ownership, attitude and respect) like Eastview eagles is a pivotal focus for our school. To nurture our commitment to safety, all students, staff and community members deserve to attend a school where equity, diversity and inclusion are at the forefront of our learning and our professional and personal growth.
As a staff we are/will:
- Examine personal biases and challenge our own beliefs.
- Model equity for our students.
- Allow flexibility in learning to accommodate all learning styles.
- We will pause, address, discuss and follow-up on remarks or actions that do not align with equity, diversity and inclusion.
- Create equitable classroom environments
- Accommodate all learning styles (seek to understand students and how they learn best).
- Examine and update learning materials. Does every student see themselves represented in learning?
- Give students a voice.
- Belong and matter
- Be acknowledged and respected
- Have a voice and be able to share thoughts, ideas and opinions
- Be in culturally sensitive classroom spaces
- Have diversity in their learning
- Have flexibility and freedom in their learning
- Have their chosen pronouns practiced and used consistently
- Learn in an environment that is differentiated to meet their needs
Communicating Progress
How do we Communicate our Progress?
Eastview Elementary’s school plan is an ongoing, evolving process that relies on reciprocal relationship between staff, students, parents and the community.
How Do We Communicate Our Progress?
- Our school website
- Monday Message (Prinicipal’s Message)
- “Week At A Glance” staff memo
- Monthly presentations at the PAC meetings
- Classroom blogs or weekly news blasts
- Informal/impromptu “classroom door” discussions
- Partners for Inclusive Education (PIE)
- School Assemblies
- Student Family Teacher (STF) Conferences (October)
- Celebration of Learning (March)
Progress Update: July 2023
As another school year closes, we reflect joyfully on all the ways that we continued to grow and thrive at Eastview Elementary.
Our PAC at Eastview has a deep committment to working with our community partners, administrators, parents and students to streamline their activities to both fund raise and build community throughout the school year.
Using our new 10-year Strategic Plan as a guide to report our student progress and learning, we are proud to highlight some of our ongoing inquiries, projects and inquiries for 2022-2023:
Student-Centred Education
Provide equity-based education that supports the learning needs of all students.
- Student voice and increased agency
- Project based learning projects with students taking a staring role in their own learning
- Exploring math, literacy and inquiry based learning
- Using our forest, circle structure or our log seating outdoor classroom spaces
- Creating visual art projects using a variety of mediums and tools
- Multi-aged buddy activities
- Exploring entrepreneurial endeavours and technology using the lens of applied design technology and science to capture beautiful images of our school grounds in a photography challenge, creating arcade games or launching a business
- Staff collaboration time used to share strategies and tactics to enhance outdoor and indoor learning opportunities
Innovative Instruction
Enhance innovative and effective approaches and curriculum to develop educated citizens.
- Dream projects
- Token Island (science and social studies year long inquiry)
- Arts Umbrella Stage Coach Workshop
- ADST Build A School Project (Accessibility & Innovation Focus)
- Entrepreneur Fair
- Young Actors Program (drama activities for intermediate students)
- Updated materials in library and reading rooms to include black, Indigenous, people of colour, equity and diversity
- New novel studies to support equity, diversity and inclusion in learning
- Teacher blogs and MS Teams communication platforms
- Heggerty oral phonics program
- Primary and Intermediate Teacher Network to bring innovative instruction to classrooms
- English Language Assessment booklets for primary students
- STF Conferences
- Primary Math Pilot Project
- Celebration of Learning
- Bike Education Program (HUBB)
- Game Ready (healthy living program)
Welcoming and Inclusive Culture
Enhance our welcoming, safe and inclusive culture and learning environments.
- Buddy Bench
- Meet the Teacher Night
- Orange Shirt Day
- Terry Fox Run
- Presentations (library programs, H2Woah)
- Music concerts (Spring Concert/Primary & Intermediate Days of Music)
- Band Concerts (Junior/Senior band concerts)
- Basketball and mini-meets
- Triple Ball and mini-meets
- Talent Show
- Ski Program
- Hot Shots
- Sports Day
- Primary Bike Parade
- Hip Hop dance lessons
- Celebration of Learning
- STF Conferences
- Kilometre Club
- Track & Field
- Cross Country
- Hot Lunch Student Leaders
- Grade 6/7 Lunch Monitors
- Black Excellence Day
- Pride month
- Grade 7 farewell ceremony and dinner/dance
- PAC sponsored community building events (movie night, community picnic)
Mental Health and Well-Being
Promote mental health and well-being through social emotional learning and trauma-informed practice.
- School wide Second Step Program
- Safe Bodies, Strong Kids (Primary Safety Program)
- Kids In the Know (Intermediate Safety Program)
- Physical Literacy program
- Pink Shirt Day
- Halloween Parade for our Elder Friends at Cedarview Lodge
- Soft start mornings
- Daily Physical Activities
- Restorative Justice practices
- PIE Community partnership
Truth, Healing and Reconciliation
Champion truth, healing and reconciliation, and embed Indigenous ways of knowing.
- Land Acknowledgement delivered with student voice
- Coast Salish Anthem
- Together Time (Family Groupings around Indigenous Teachings).
- Orange Shirt Day, National Indigenous Day and National Indigenous History Month.
- Cheakamus Centre to foster place-based learning
- Applying the First Peoples Principles of Learning
- Recognizing and acknowledging the Indigenous Worldviews in our everyday practice
Environmental Stewardship
Lead on sustainable practices and nature based learning to address environmental challenges.
- Clothing drive/swap
- Purchase of pollinator seeds for our school garden
- School-wide buddy competency activity using nature as inspiration
- Continue all eating inside classrooms to eliminate food waste and litter on the school grounds
- Nurturing our community garden
- Return-It Bottle Drive (PAC driven)
- Engage with nature to develop our appreciation and connection to the lands around us
- HVAC system completed to promote fresh-air exchange inside school
- Community Clean-Up of our grounds and surrounding areas
All these combined activities helped foster an appreciation and deepen our collective understanding that students need and should be at the centre of their learning for it to be meaningful.
“Learning ultimately supports the well-being of the self, the family, the community, the land, the spirits, and the ancestors.” (First Peoples Principles of Learning)
As the summer days arrive, we gently bid this year a fond farewell. We look forward to a seeing you all in the Fall of 2023.