School Name: Columbia Park Elementary School

School District: SD#19 Revelstoke

Inquiry Team Members: Sarah Lenzi: slenzi@sd19.bc.ca, Lucie Perusse: lperusse@sd19.bc.ca, Tracey Hill: thill@sd19.bc.ca, Hailey Lacroix: hlacroix@sd19.bc.ca, Jillian Russell: jrussell@sd19.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Name/Email: Sarah Lenzi/slenzi@sd19.bc.ca

II. Inquiry Project Information

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE

Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Primary (K-3)

Curricular Areas Addressed:

• Applied Design, skills & Technology
• Arts Education
• Language Arts – Literacy
• Physical & Health Education
• Science
• Social Studies

Focus Addressed:

• Indigenous understandings (for example, Traditional Knowledge, oral history, reconciliation)
• Community-based learning
• Differentiated instruction
• Experiential learning
• Growth mindset
• Inclusion and inclusive instructional strategies
• Inquiry-based learning
• Land, Nature or Place-based learning
• STEM / STEAM

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Student and teacher connectedness and engagement through collaboration, exploration, inquiry and play.

III. Spirals of Inquiry Details

Scanning: Each classroom teacher involved in this inquiry completed a scanning questionnaire with their students for a total of three times. These questionnaires were asked on a one-to-one basis.

We adapted the questions from the Spiral to focus on their experience during explorations specifically. We made sure to include the question about their connection to at least two adults in the school. The FPPL “Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place),” as well as the OECD principles of learning “learners at the centre, the social nature of learning and building horizontal connections,” were the main principals that drove our scanning process. After each scan we reflected and adjusted how we approached our exploration groups to ensure their recognition of the purpose and process of the explorations.

We noticed that students were engaged during exploration, and students who struggled to participate during regular class time had higher engagement. Students were excited to attend their exploration, and they would voluntarily share their learning and experiences with their peers, teachers and parents. By the third scan, most students were able to name two adults in the school they felt believed in them, as well as name peers outside of their regular classroom they felt connected to.

Focus: We noticed a school wide lack of connectedness amongst staff and students because of COVID protocols and a major school renovation. Teachers expressed feeling isolated from each other and from other students in the school. We noticed a change in our students’ engagement, behaviour, and mental health.

Hunch: Due to COVID, students and staff were isolated in their learning and home environments. We noticed relationships were not being formed. There were not enough opportunities for students to mix with peers because of cohorts, no large group gatherings and lack of extra curricular activities.

New Professional Learning: Our meetings and reflections on the whole process throughout the year was the best professional development for each other. Due to working with multi-age groups, we really had to delve deeper into the curriculum outside of our regular assigned grade.

Taking Action:

• Open and transparent communication with colleagues participating in the explorations was the most important strategy.
• Logistics – organizing space, scheduling, visuals for students, EA support, supplies, technology, budget, etc.
• Finding time to meet for reflections and adaptations.
• Dedicated team committed to the success of the inquiry and our students’ connectedness.

Checking: Students were more engaged during the explorations and there was an obvious increase in connection between teachers and students who did not know each other previously. Not only were students engaged, but they were excited and looked forward to each session. Explorations allowed students’ individual strengths to be showcased. It also allowed for students who may not readily seek leadership opportunities in the classroom to explore their leadership potential. Yes, we were satisfied with the richness of the students’ responses – in their ability to articulate their experiences – by the final round of scanning questions.

Reflections/Advice: We learned that student choice is important for engagement and that student benefit is connected to teacher commitment to innovative learning experiences. We learned that multi-age groupings and collaborative hands-on learning contributed to school connectedness.

This project and it’s success motivated us to continue this next year and hopefully years to come.

Our advice would be to communicate frequently with colleagues ensuring reflections and to be open to adjust as needed throughout the process.

School District: SD#19 Revelstoke

Inquiry Team Members:Kendra VonBremen: kvonbremen@sd19.bc.ca
Ariel McDowell: amcdowell@sd19.bc.ca
Michelle Gadbois: mgadbois@sd19.bc.ca
Graham Mackenzie: gmackenzie@sd19.bc.ca
Eric Dubuc: edubuc@sd19.bc.ca
Lori Snider: lsnider@sd19.bc.ca
Colleen Wall: cwall@sd19.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Email: cwall@sd19.bc.ca

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE

Grade Levels: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7), Secondary (8-12)

Curricular Area(s): Physical & Health Education

Focus Addressed: Other: Physical Literacy

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Our focus was to see if by increasing awareness and skill development of Physical Literacy throughout our District, would it increase all students’ physical activity levels?

Scanning: Our scanning process started with information from a regional survey of student’s physical activity done by the Columbia Basin Trust (CBT). We also used results from our district’s Middle Years Development Index (MDI) results. What we saw in these results was supported by years of teacher observations. First, from our intermediate teachers, who were noticing that students were either not wanting to be involved in active sports in physical education classes and/or in our district’s elementary extra-curricular sports program or dropping out of the extra-curricular program. Second, from our secondary school physical education (P.E.) teachers were seeing that many students were struggling in their secondary P.E. classes.

Focus: In general, we now know that many Canadian children are not meeting the sedentary behaviour and physical activity recommendations and that these behaviours have an effect on their health. Specifically, in our community, we were seeing that although many children are very physically active from an early age, there are also a considerable amount of our children who are not taking part in school and community opportunities, often because of a lack of adult support (time and/or money) and we were concerned about the effects of this on their health as well as the divide it was creating amongst our children. We are hoping that more children will become more physically active.

Hunch: We had several hunches:

• We were aware that many primary physical education classes were based in co-operative games and that many intermediate classes were based in traditional games such as volleyball, basketball, badminton, track and field. We wondered if the limited amount of Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS) being taught was due to a lack of training for teachers in how to teach FMS.
• This lead us to wonder:

o If children were not developing and becoming confident using their FMS’s in the primary grades was this having an effect on their participation in active sports in P.E classes and/or in the extra-curricular elementary and secondary school sports programs? “If you can’t throw a ball overhand, you can’t hit a volleyball, throw a javelin, hit and overhead smash in badminton…”

o Were children not wanting to participate because of the competitive element often associated with organized sport and the public nature of the games and tournaments that are a part of our extra-curricular programs?

New Professional Learning: • As a group we attended a Physical Literacy and FMS workshop.
• With support of the CBT we are part of a wider group in our region inquiring into Physical Literacy and representatives from our group attend twice yearly meetings to learn together with this group.
• Representatives from our group have attended additional FMS workshop’s and brought their learning back to our group.
• We learned from each other!
o Our inquiry group was made up of a variety of staff, including elementary and secondary school physical education teachers, primary and intermediate classroom teachers and our healthy schools co-ordinator. Having individuals with this breadth of knowledge and experience enriched our learning in many ways and in particular it allowed us to hear the stories of our student’s progress and participation with Physical Literacy over their years in our schools. Many of these educators are also involved in our community sports programs and their perspectives further informed our learning and the ideas for taking action.

Taking Action: • Co-teaching between a secondary physical education teacher and an elementary preparation teacher (who primarily teaches physical education). These sessions were videoed and will be available for other teachers to view. This was made possible by a combination of volunteer time and providing some district release time for the secondary school teacher.
• The newly trained elementary teacher then co-taught with other elementary classroom teachers. This again was made possible by release time being provided by our district.
• Offering a new addition to the district extra-curricular sports program which we called “All Star Gym” for students in grades 3-7 at one of our elementary schools and in another elementary school “All Star Games” for students in grades 4-7. The format for this time was that students were asked what they would like to do in the gym and we would then divide up the gym in as many ways as we could, trying to accommodate as many of the activities as possible.
• Creation of a non-competitive high school P.E. class. This allowed for many learners to learn the FMS in a safe environment and then in turn use these in skill-based games at a slower pace to allow them to find success.
• In progress – Creation of a teacher online resource for teachers about FMS. This will include the videos of the co-teaching sessions. We hope to share this resource at our first 2019-2020 PD day.

Checking: • The response by the teacher learners in the co-teaching program was “Thank-you, when can we do this again?”

• All Star Gym

WOW! For the two teachers that sponsored All Star Gym this is where a lot of inquiry wonder and learning happened! In allowing the students to be the directors and choose their activities, we learned a lot. First to say, for some reason (and we’re not really sure why) All Star Gym attracted many of the students who often struggle in their school gym classes. We think it is safe to say that many of those students would be described as the kids who don’t like gym and in extension don’t like to move – but this is not what we saw at All Star Gym because those kids love to move! We also saw the magical power of music to get us all moving and the magical power of play to provide opportunities to collaborate together as creative and critical thinkers. The children that came to All Star Gym showed us that they love to move yet we know that many of them do not demonstrate this in the context of their physical education classes and are not involved in the extra-curricular sports programs. So, we are going back to the scanning and hunch phase wondering:
• Do the children’s executive function skills have a role to play?
• Is it a lack of experience with organized sport and therefore a lack of confidence/growth mindset to try something new?
• Is it a lack of opportunity/encouragement to be physically active and learn FMS?

We’re not sure…yet! And that is why we are going back into the spiral…

• All Star Games

The element of choice allowed experimentation and thus the children increased their confidence in movement. This resulted in them being more willing to try the games and more willing to be active…hopefully for life.

Reflections/Advice: -Co-teaching and modeling are key.
-Teachers need to use it or lose it; have the teachers use the model right away again in their class so they don’t forget it and use it while it’s fresh and they feel confident.
-Get students and teachers to assess FMS and communicate these assessments to parents.
-Continue our inquiry with All Star Gym while also investigating possibilities to expand All Star Gym hopefully with the support of secondary school students and/or community mentors.

School District: SD#19 Revelstoke

Inquiry Team Members:Rita Tedesco: rtedesco@sd19.bc.ca, Allison Just: ajust@sd19.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Email: ajust@sd19.bc.ca

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE

Grade Levels: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7)

Curricular Area(s): Matahematics / Numeracy

Focus Addressed: Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving), Differentiated instruction, Flexible learning, Growth mindset

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? We chose to focus on numeracy, specifically how we can promote flexible and deeper thinking in math.

Scanning: Classroom teachers are addressing different ability levels in their math classes. Collaboration time and additions to staff meetings were addressing good practice in numeracy. Many teachers are moving towards a workshop format that allows students to work at their conceptual level and also allows classroom teachers to give students more individualized instruction in smaller groups. We wondered if this format could become more targeted. School-Wide Math Assessments at Arrow Heights School are showing what students don’t know, but not showing the “why” behind their lack of understanding.

Focus: We want students to think deeper and and on a broader level in mathematics. What impact would we have on student learning if we target/utilize early numeracy skills (that are identified as missing) to promote flexible thinking in math?

Hunch: If the missing understandings are filled in, we should see more confident, numerate thinkers. Classroom assessment results are indicating that our students struggle the most with multi-step numeracy real life tasks. These tasks are ones that focus on the application of concepts rather than the procedure of the math involved. This was of concern as it became apparent that some students had developed misunderstandings and needed targeted instruction in order to develop their thinking, so that they could function in grade level curricular concepts.

New Professional Learning: We used a resource called First Steps in Math.
Our action provided opportunities for students to develop their misunderstandings in order to function at grade level.
The activities in the intervention program are fun and engaging, which motivated students to take part.
The activities allowed students to work through problems at their own pace with plenty of different ways to solve problems in an environment where it was safe to make mistakes.
The activities provided a sense of accomplishment in math where confidence is low.
The activities provided students with opportunities to work and learn together in small groups to solve problems.

Taking Action: 1. Currently, our school is using class-based assessments in order to measure math skills so that teachers can adjust their instruction throughout the year.
2. We gave extra help and support for those students who are missing the key understandings or concepts in order to promote flexible thinking by filling in the “missing gaps.”
3. In order to do this, we launched a numeracy intervention using First Steps in Math Diagnostic Program, which allows teachers to discover and diagnose missing key understandings.
4. We created kits using the First Steps Program (available online) to address deficits.
5. We met with students in small groups to work on these targeted areas.
6. Approximately 10% of each class fell under this category.

Checking: Our focused small learning groups showed growth in the three-month time frame that the intervention strategy occurred.
In K-3, the number of students fully meeting increased from 63% to 76%. There was still 5% who did not meet expectations.
In grades 4-7, the number of students who had not yet met the key understandings for multiplicative thinking – place value moved from 19% to only 6%.

Reflections/Advice: The results in implementing the program in the way that we did were positive for our school.
We need to work on challenges encountered with coordination of times and classroom schedules.
Our intervention occurred in the later part of the school year. We will focus on providing the intervention for a longer period of time next year, starting much earlier.
Next year we will continue to target the 10% of students in each class who need extra help and support with key understandings in math.

School District: SD#19 Revelstoke

Inquiry Team Members:Gio Tedesco: gtedesco@sd19.bc.ca, Sally Andrykew: sandrykew@sd19.bc.ca, Natalie Macleod: nmacleod@sd19.bc.ca, Janette Vickers: jvickers@sd19.bc.ca, Hailey Lacroix: hlacroix@sd19.bc.ca, Jackie Uremovich: juremovich@sd19.bc.ca, Amber Thompson: athompson@sd19.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Email: athompson@sd19.bc.ca

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE

Grade Levels: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7)

Curricular Area(s): Other: Core Competencies

Focus Addressed: Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving)

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Making the Core Competencies accessible and relevant for the students

Scanning: With the introduction of the Core Competencies in the redesigned curriculum, many teachers had noticed that students were finding it difficult to connect and understand the core competencies. We realised that we needed to ensure that we placed our students at the centre and to explore how we could make the Core Competencies more accessible. The other OECD principles which guided us in the scanning process included working to learn about the Core Competencies in a social way, as a classroom community (social nature of learning). The Primary team had done a lot of work into self-regulation through the Zones, and therefore understood the importance of considering emotions when planning how to educate our students on the Core Competencies. Also, we wanted to include the Core Competencies in all curriculum areas, therefore including horizontal connectedness was vital. The First People’s Principles had a large impact on our scanning, as we all wished to include more indigenous education in our classrooms. One teacher had already explored the Seven Sacred Teachings, and when I discovered the resource which was linked with indigenous animals and legends, it spurred our inquiry on.

Focus: I discovered the book, ‘The Six Cedars’ over the summer break, and realised that connecting an animal to each of the Core Competencies may be a great way to help students understand and connect with the skills related to the Core Competencies. I then contacted several other teachers in my school, and this grew to all of the primary teachers, (plus myself as a Grade 4 teacher) deciding to explore the resource, and using it in our classrooms guided by the inquiry question: “Would students understanding and Connection to the Core Competencies increase by using ‘The Six Cedars’ in our classrooms?”. We were hoping to see a common language used which would increase students connection and understanding of the Core Competencies, as well as an improvement in their ability to self assess their growth in the various Core Competency areas.

Hunch: Our hunch was that the Core Competency language was too ‘dry’ for students’ and that some of the language used was confusing and caused a barrier (especially for primary aged students) which stopped them from fully engaging with the Core Competencies. Therefore, self-assessment was also very difficult for the students to do. We felt if a whole school language (beginning with primaries as ‘guinea pigs’) with the theme of the Six Cedars animal connections was used in all classrooms, then the children would grow in their understanding and ability to self-assess in the various skills.

New Professional Learning: The most useful resource was each other! We used the time allotted to every inquiry participant by the school district to collaborate with colleagues. Within the primary team at Arrow Heights, teachers also paired off, so the two Kindergarten teachers developed lessons and resources which they could use with K’s, the Grade 1 teaching team paired together, the 2/3 teachers paired off to do the same, and as the Grade 4 teacher, I oversaw everyone, and guided them through the Spiral of Inquiry process. Resources were created by each teacher team, plus contact was made with a teacher in the Delta District who had developed her own self assessment tool, which we were given permission to adapt.
Each teacher obtained the Six Cedars posters for their classroom, and we shared a couple of copies of the book, as it was important to have visuals to refer to everyday.

Taking Action: We found that every grade focused on specific ‘animals’ or Core Competencies more than others. For example, in Kindergarten and Grade 1, the focus was on Bear (Self-Regulation and understanding emotions), Wolf was also a strong focus, (teaching how to be good communicators and listeners). In Grades 2/3, the teachers told me that they focused a lot on Orca (Family heritage and understanding self) as it tied in so well with the Social Studies Curriculum. Raven (Creative Thinking) was also a strong focus. At the Grade 4 level, I introduced all of the animals and their Core Competency at the beginning of the year, and then spent a week on each animal, really getting to know that Core Competency. As the year progressed, each animal was a focus for the class at different times, depending on what we were doing in class. Beaver was key for my class, as we did a lot of group projects where collaboration was important. Developing Critical Thinking skills (Salmon) was also a vital understanding for the Grade 4’s, as coming from primary to intermediate, they had not used the language of critical thinking much before.
Tying Core Competencies in with subject areas, really helped the teachers to ensure that time was spent focusing on the animals linked to specific skills. For example, whilst learning about ecosystems in Science, the teacher would ask the students to put on their ‘Salmon Hats’ and use their Critical thinking skills and observation skills to figure out what animals and plants lived in the local ecosystems.
A key finding in our inquiry was that the language in the original Six Cedars was quite complex and confusing for the youngest students. Therefore, the two Kindergarten teachers co-wrote a picture book(with illustrations by our teacher -librarian) with a simpler, more ‘primary friendly’ story which they could then use in their classrooms next year. In my Grade 4 class, each ‘animal group’ of children collaboratively wrote a story based on a specific Core Competency skill, using Indigenous legends as their models. Each story had to include a moral such as ‘How Wolf learned to Communicate’ etc.
For student led conferences, three teachers created an ‘animal sort’ where the students would demonstrate to their parents that they could match the animal to the Core Competency, an indigenous picture of the animal, and a social story which demonstrated that particular Core Competency skill. This worked very well, and helped to teach the parents about the Six Cedars and the Core Competencies, as well as show the students increasing understanding and connection to the Core Competencies.

Checking: After all primary and Grade 4 classes using the Six Cedars throughout the year, we all agree that we have noticed a substantial improvement in the student’s connection and understanding of the Core Competencies. Students now refer to ‘Wolf’ when discussing how to be good listeners, or ‘Raven’ when using Creative Thinking skills. We used the Summative Core Competency self-assessment as our baseline, comparing how well students self-assessed themselves last year, compared to this year.
Overall, we have found that by using the animals from the Six Cedars, students can easily recognise what each Core Competency is, what it means, and where on the continuum they personally are. Even Kindergarten students were able to colour in their self assessment at the stage they feel they are at, which is pretty remarkable! Several parents commented after the student-led conferences that they were impressed how well even very young students could describe the animals from the Six Cedars book, and what Core Competency that animal was linked to.
Students are giving more in-depth answers to the four key questions, as they are becoming comfortable with self-assessment and reflection.

Reflections/Advice: In reflection, we have all gained a lot from doing this inquiry. We have grown as a collaborative team, and this was the first inquiry for many of the teachers involved. I believe after this year, all of the teachers will either continue the Spiral with the Six Cedars, or will be keen to start a different inquiry next year. The principal of the school has been impressed with what we have achieved this year, and wants the use of the Six Cedars to expand into the Intermediate grades for next year. We hope that the language using the various animals will be used widely throughout the school, during assemblies, on school announcements, as well as throughout lesson times, to really cement all students’ connection to the Core Competencies.
We have realised that it is key to spend several weeks introducing the Six Cedars and the Core Competencies at the beginning of the year. Once students have an understanding of what each animal represents, then the Core Competencies can be interwoven into every lesson and activity throughout the school day. Many teachers chose to focus on two specific skills for each animal, as they felt more than this was overwhelming for the younger students. However, at the Grade 4 and intermediate grade levels, I would think that all skills could be taught and discussed.
We hope next year to develop more resources, and we have already had other school district employees (such as the speech pathologist) demonstrate an interest in becoming involved. Teachers in other schools in Revelstoke are keen to learn more, so we are considering doing a pro-d introduction and explanation of what we have learnt through this years inquiry. Hopefully this would lead to more teachers getting involved and it becoming a district wide initiative. We hope to touch base with teachers in the Delta district who have been using the Six Cedars longer than we have, as perhaps they have suggestions for resources or lessons that they may have used that have been successful.

School District: SD#19 Revelstoke

Inquiry Team Members:Allison Just ajust@sd19.bc.ca
Lori Snider lsnider@sd19.bc.ca
Meghan Simpson msimpson@sd19.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Email: ajust@sd19.bc.ca

Type of Inquiry: NOII (focus on core competencies, OECD learning principles, etc.)

Grade Levels: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7), Secondary (8-12)

Curricular Area(s): Other: English Language Learners

Focus Addressed: Community-based learning, Inclusion and inclusive insructional strategies

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? What can we do to improve student support, connections and engagement with our ELL students?

Scanning: School District 19 is much smaller than most districts in BC. As a result, many ELL students were the only ones from their cultures represented in our schools. We wondered what would would happen if we brought them together – would there be more connection to their school and community if they found similar cultures and made new connections that shared and celebrated their own cultures? We wondered what it would be like for these learners if we looked for better ways to support the connections within our community.

Focus: We were hoping to give students more of a voice in their learning. We also wanted to provide opportunities for students to connect with each other, and in some cases, to making family connections within Revelstoke. We also wanted our actions to provide opportunities to share and celebrate ELL students’ individual culture with the school population.

Hunch: We are such a small district with small school populations. We were concerned that we were not doing all that we could to provide those connections for our students, expecially ones who have only just moved to town. We wanted to ensure:
– a sense of pride in their own culture.
– opportunities to connect with each other and other families with the same culture.
– a value in grouping students together in order to learn from each other.

New Professional Learning: We joined the Small District ELL Planning group. Each session provided us with a structure for conversation and many new resource ideas were shared.
We are three teachers from three different school who did not know each other very well before this inquiry. The release time that the inquiry provided gave us a chance to connect with each other and share our expereinces with teaching ELL in Revelstoke.

Taking Action: 1. We met two times for district inquiry planning/collaboration time.
2. We were part of a Small District Inquiry Planning. There were 4 on-line sessions.
3. We provided opportunities for ELL students to connect, share and collaborate with each other.
4. We examined and developed a new Annual Instruction Plan (AIP) to improve consistency and communication amongst students, district and staff personnel, and parents in our district.
5. We previewed and discussed current forms of assessment and resources. We developed a collaborative online document so it can be shared.

Checking: We had a year-end celebration with representation from all three schools where all ELL students were working together, reflecting on their experience, and participating in a follow-up activity.
We will continue to provide more group work with students across the district.

Reflections/Advice: Where are we going from here?
We want to cotinue to celebrate a culture within a classroom/school/district.
We want to continue to support district opportunities for connections among our ELL students.
We woudl like to see more ELL celebrations including all schools in the district.
We would like to create smaller, more frequent events between schools (For example: buddy reading, short leadership activity with students from the high school)
Lastly, we would like to Investigate the use of new online resources and apps in order to make better use of technology for our ELL students.