I. General Information
School Name: Evelyn Dickson Elementary School
School District: SD#91 Nechako Lakes
Inquiry Team Members: Allison Quintal – aquintal@sd91.bc.ca
Sydney Kelly – skelly@sd91.bc.ca
Kira Watson – kwatson@sd91.bc.ca
Michelle Miller-Gauthier -mmgauthier@sd91.bc.ca
Deb Koehn – dkoehn@sd91.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: aquintal@sd91.bc.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Case Study
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Intermediate (4-7)
Curricular Areas Addressed: Career Education, Language Arts – Literacy, Science, Social Studies
Focus Addressed: Self-regulation
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? At the beginning we wanted to improve literacy skills, but as the year progressed and scanning continued, we realized we needed to shift our focus to our students’ concerns of living in this place and what it means to us as individuals and as a group of strangers sharing learning experiences.
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
Scanning: Students expressed concern and worry about the move to Nechako Valley Secondary School Middle School. Originally, all three beginning career teachers from different schools individually wanted to focus on place and learning about place. They realized, through scanning, that students from across the Nechako valley, in grades 5 and 6, had similar questions around belonging and connection. Teachers began planning together and included cross school experiences. Student feedback informed teachers that they needed to address the concerns of students in these small, somewhat rural elementary schools. Students needed experiences together to help them create a sense of identity when moving into new spaces, still within their watershed. Teachers responded to students’ questions about belonging and identity through an exploration of waterways and how similar experiences were held by all students. Several whole group activities were planned that allowed students to explore place, and who they are in this place to help ready them for this transition.
Focus: Student voice helped direct this inquiry. Students actually lived kilometres away from each other, but shared the upcoming transition of moving from a rural or small elementary school into a larger group of students. At the same time, teachers from each of the three elementary schools were collaborating on a cross-curricular unit based on their watershed. Listening to students’ concerns shifted the focus of the unit somewhat – from understanding the watershed to understanding how the watershed shaped us in similar ways and created a sense of connection and belonging. We hoped to create a strong sense of community and students reported feeling a greater sense of well-being, gained from knowing students from different elementary schools, but in the same cohort in the 2026-2027 school year.
Hunch: Students interacted during sports meets and these meets could have developed a sense of competition, instead of community. Students were hearing rumours and stories that caused worries about the upcoming year. Students had little sense of learning that was happening in each elementary school building, and so felt no sense of collective and shared learning experiences.
New Professional Learning: The three educators were working with District staff to create learning units as a collaborative team. As meetings progressed, educators began to reflect more on student voice and agency. We constantly used the Spiral of Inquiry framework, as educators tried to understand students’ emotional and learning needs. We met frequently to further develop cross-curricular strands.
Taking Action: We used the watershed to drive cross-curricular learning. We allowed student voice to redirect us, even though huge amounts of invested time were diverted. We did not cling to adult voice. We moved to student voice influencing decision making.
Checking: Students are expressing excitement about their transition to a shared space, within the shared space of their watershed. Students learned a great deal about their place, the role of the Indigenous community in protecting this place, and why shared actions are important. Students feel that they have allies as they move into their new community.
Reflections/Advice: Student voice is important. Teachers had designed a highly engaging unit around the watershed, but when students saw and heard community members totally invested in environmental stewardship (the Mayor, Indigenous community members) they shifted their level of engagement and saw a connection that ran through their community, the river and the watershed.
We think that this was well worth investing, and were amazed at how interested students became in local decision making. Moving forward, we will be working on continuing cross-school collaborations.