StrongStart Learning Standards

Last year our StrongStart facilitators wanted to focus their professional learning on the Early Learning Framework and ways it could inspire their practice. This year to help communicate StrongStart objectives to families we decided to take what we know about the Early Learning Framework and present it in a one pager that summarizes the elements of the framework that feel most applicable to StrongStart.

To help us align with the K-7 curriculum we decided to use the Understand-Do-Know framework of the transformed curriculum. The result is 1 pager with 4 Big Ideas (one for each ELF domain) many competencies and even a few content objectives.

We're currently focussing on documentation and are using the competencies (turned into I can statements) to gives us some common language with parents and between StrongStarts.

Click here for the learning standards in a Word document

Supporting Kindergarten Students (and the adults that support them)

I recently ran a half day session on a district ProD Day on what I called the little-big things to consider when working with Kindergarten students. (though really the ideas are quite applicable to any age student). The session was aimed at all the adults supporting K students from Education Assistants to Support Teachers. The idea was to consider some early learning principles and how they translate into our work with students, particularly those that are struggling. We worked through themes of belonging, attachment, neuroscience/building on strengths and interests, and differentiated support. Professionals that attended had time between the sections to complete an individualized reflection sheet on a student that they wanted to focus on.

Where it fit we made links to our Kindergarten support materials that we developed a few years ago that are also available online. https://deltalearns.ca/kindergarten/social-emotional-learning-and-class-organization/

The presentation and materials can be found at https://deltalearns.ca/kindergarten/social-emotional-learning-and-class-organization/workshop-presentations/

Ready-Set-Learn & Kindergarten Play Kits

This year to support schools in planning their Ready-Set-Learn events we provided them a menu of kits which they could choose to spend their RSL money on.

The kits are sourced from catalogues and Vancouver area suppliers. There's an Aboriginal Kit, an Artistic Expression Kit, a Dramatic Play Kit, a Forest Block Kit, and a Light and Colour Kit. Complete sets ranged in price from $340 to $560 and schools were able to not order any items if they didn't want them.

The idea was to help teachers and schools source learning materials that could be used at their RSL as a play area and later be incorporated into the Kindergarten and StrongStart rooms.

Kit Details and Ordering Info

Little Children's Garden

May 23, 2014
Cook Early Learning Centre is going to have a Little Children's Garden constructed on a green space adjacent to the portable where the centre is located.  Using a District Sustainability Grant, lots of ingenuity as well as conversations with facilitators, staff, and families we are in the process of creating a playscape for our youngest students.  This playscape will incorporate natural materials, a mud garden, edible plantings, a play house and lots of things to climb on and explore.  This will be the very first playscape on Richmond school grounds.

Vancouver CR4YRs 2013-2014

Vancouver CY4YRs 2013-2014

Vancouver School District had 24 teachers from 8 different schools involved in Changing Results for Young Readers for 2013-2014. The messages that teachers shared highlight the value of collegial conversations, connecting with other colleagues across the district, time to delve more deeply into educational issues, importance of developing relationships with each child, one to one time with children who are struggling and building on a child's passion or 
                                             interest to increase engagement and motivation.

Coquitlam report to May 2014 meeting

This year our SS centres have been focusing on aboriginal circles. The aboriginal district resource teacher first worked with facilitators at a staff meeting to demonstrate how a circle would work in a way that was generalizable to their circle times. Then the other district aboriginal resource teachers started site visits to work with children and families. They conducted circles, read aboriginal stories, did drumming and worked with puppets. 

We will continue this focus next year with more emphasis being placed  on the aboriginal ways of knowing as they relate to outdoor learning.

Curious about new reporting on quality tool. Discussed need to get interested district people together to discuss what this will look like in districts in the future. How the information will be gathered to report on using the tool, etc.

Community Connections: Our ECD table and MDCM table is working on a children’s charter. We have done visioning with our tables and kids from our two rights respecting schools (one at elementary and one at middle). We are hoping to have our charter completed by spring 2015.

Our social marketing committee has spent the last year working on key messaging that will be used with the public in terms of what we stand for and believe in. For example: Play: everyday, everyone, everywhere. 

MNMF (My Neighbourhood, My Future project. Funded by United Way of the Lower Mainland and sponsored by UW, Help and Sparc BC. We were one of two districts selected and the neighbourhood we are focusing on is called Coquitlam River. The neighbourhood includeds 3 elementary schools and one middle school. It is a five year funded project to build neighbourhood capacity (and reduce early childhood vulnerabilities) by engaging people who live in the neighbourhood to support one another through innovative ways that will be self sustaining when the funding stops in 5 years.

We have also applied for a 20,000 grant which will be applied to providing pop up play grounds from July through to next February. In the summer in local parks and in the fall in 3 local schools where there is a high level of vulnerability, no StrongStart and no proximity to local services for families.

Curriculum Projects: This year we have had focus groups of teachers (K-12) and administrators meeting 5 times (with release) to examine the curriculum (math, science, social studies, language arts) and Communicating Student Learning for the purpose of trying out the concepts and giving feedback to the ministry. One of the 5 releases included a ministry presentation on the new curriculum. Last meetings included the completion of the ministry feedback surveys.

LIF: This year we had a coordinator and 2 support teachers take the lead on this work. We took our LIF funding and schools were able to apply for the funding to support their work on more inclusive approaches to learning. This might include money for collaboration time, money for an extra bit of staffing. We also provided district pro d to support inclusive practices. We had three pro d days with Leyton Schnellert, Miriam Miller and Faye Brownlie and all teachers who attended also participated in learning teams at their schools in order to begin trying out some of the practices. We also had 3 district sessions (each time 2 elementary, 1 middle and 1 secondary) with a principal and 2 teacher reps from each school. At these sessions we had Faye Brownlie for one and Leyton Schnellert for one again reiterating inclusive practice and the focus on inclusive support. The learning services team visited all schools in the district in the spring to talk to school teams about their work and the data was rolled up so we had a district vision of the progress being made towards in class support models.

Story Workshop

May 23, 2014
Story Workshop
Richmond School District sent a group of teachers, administrators, and StrongStart facilitators to visit Opal School in Portland, Oregon to participate in the two day symposium called, "Reading the World".
This session gave participants time to observe in classrooms while story Workshop was taking place.  Everyone who participated in the sessions came away with new insights about story workshop and many of these could be put into practice.  Teachers were inspired by the collaborative nature of the classrooms and the mutual respect by both teachers and students.  Opal school has a very comprehensive blog and website that can be easily viewed.

Richmond Report

May 23, 2014
Changing Results for Young Readers
Richmond School District has continued to support Changing Results for Young Readers.  The four schools involved recently completed their case studies and submitted them.  The last meeting confirmed that positive relationships with students and responsive practice has made a difference for our students.
The team attended the April Conference and enjoyed hearing Pat Johnson, author of Catching Readers Before They Fall.

Ready Set Learn in Richmond

Richmond's Ready Set Learn community events will take place every Wednesday in February and the first two Wednesdays' in March.  This year we will focus on First Peoples Principles of Learning.  At our first Ready Set Learn, we will have a Traditional Opening given by Henry Charles.  Station activities that focus on early literacy skills will be enjoyed by the children and their families.  Our events  also feature a concert by Children's performer, Will Stroet. We are very excited to once again to include our community partners in these events.