I. General Information
School Name: Mountain View Elementary
School District: SD#68 Nanaimo-Ladysmith
Inquiry Team Members: Thea Miscavish: thea.miscavish@sd68.bc.ca, Lanny Cronan: lcronan@sd68.bc.ca, Kathy Bergman: Kathy.bergman@sd68.bc.ca, Debbie Cronan: dcronan@sd68.bc.ca, Alana Lavery: alavery@sd68.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Name/Email: Thea Miscavish/thealan@shaw.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7)
Curricular Areas Addressed:
- Other: Building Connection through Social-Emotional Learning with a PBIS Framework
Focus Addressed:
- Social and emotional learning
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Building Connection through Social-Emotional Learning with a PBIS Framework
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
Scanning: PBIS had been implemented years ago, so matrices existed. We’re finding that the students and staff required an opportunity to engage in conversations about the what and the why aspects of the expectations. As leaders, we hoped to foster conversations with our staff, students and families in hopes of providing a safer, more positive and respectful, environment for all. Multiple classrooms were polled using the anonymous student questionnaire.
Focus: Presenting school-wide expectations in a positive and (intrinsically) rewarding way will enhance learning experiences, empathy, self-regulation, and executive functioning for all learners in the school.
Hunch: Presenting PBIS expectations in a fun way with students would make a bigger impact, especially with humour.
New Professional Learning: As we progressed, we found that utilizing PBIS as an entire school, with fidelity, was difficult this time. Instead, we focused more on classroom PBIS within the three classes that were involved. Reinforcing that PBIS is an evidence-based philosophy, our three classrooms intend to continue with it and promote it at the school through collaboration and modelling for dissemination with other staff members.
Taking Action: We focused on building leadership with a small number of 5/6 learners who identified the major issues that they saw for school-wide behaviour concerns. In doing this, they then created scripts and worked with grade one students to better enhance their understanding of the expectations, specifically with hallways, washroom use, entering and exiting the classroom, etc. In addition to this, we attempted to build school-wide connection through the Teacher Feature. Each week, a different educator was honoured and information (that they were comfortable with) was shared with the school. It was followed up with positive quotes from other members of the school community. We will continue with this next year and it will be created by the students.
Checking: Our group definitely needed to pivot with our focus. We recognized that our topic and goal was VERY large and not as realistic as we had hoped. We checked in with our learners and with each other to see what we COULD achieve. As a small group, we found that making connections with small numbers of students, or those who were potentially at risk or vulnerable, was where we could truly make a difference. We also recognized the value in investing in our grade 5/6 students who will be the leaders over the next few years.
Reflections/Advice: Based on recommendations from our school counsellor, we utilized our funding to purchase the “A Little Spot of ___” books by Diane Alber. This valuable resource will be the basis for our upcoming September transition to school and virtues/traits for the next learning year.
Photo (above): Diane Alber has written a number of “A Little Spot of _____”
books that are age-appropriate for K-4. In hopes of sending valuable messages to the
grade 5-7 grades, they will be used within buddy classes for the upcoming year.
In addition to this, we have recognized the importance of ongoing social-emotional learning at all grades. Finding evidence-based programs to support this will be a focus for next year. As we hopefully transition to a post-covid world, our team hopes to continue to build on our students’ strengths and continue to develop joy, empathy, and connections within the school.