Core Competencies and the New Curriculum

At Delta's recent NID, some of our workshops focussed on the Core Competencies. We've made the content of those workshops available to schools and teachers in the district and are happy to share them with others in the province as well.

As part of one of the workshops I have taken the competencies apart into their individual facets. By separating them from the other facets, and removing them from their profile number I think this makes for a more useable format to share with students to help them identify where they are at and what their next step is.

The Core Competency materials can be found on our Innovative Teaching Toolkit website.

https://deltalearns.ca/toolkit/core-competencies/

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/

“SPARK! 10”

All Grade 10 Students in the District Learn about the Early Years and Apply their Skills by Working with the Young Children in StrongStart

The SPARK! Program in School District No. 46 (Sunshine Coast) provides learning opportunities for parents and caregivers with children under the age of five.  A recent addition to this program, designed to complete the cycle, is called ‘SPARK! 10’.  In SPARK! 10 all Grade 10 students in the district develop an understanding of the uniqueness of the early years, and the factors that impact future health, learning and behaviour.  The students attend three in class sessions and then apply their skills by working with the children who attend StrongStart Early Learning centres.  This approach ensures that all students who graduate from the district have an understanding of how to best support young children.  Strategies to support literacy and learning include fostering communication skills, as well as knowledge of factors which impact lifelong health and development, such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.  The grade 10 students develop an understanding of how to personalize learning and strategies to support playful and active engagement. They apply these skills immediately through working within their community, and they will draw on these skills in their futures, particularly as our next generation of parents.

For more information, contact

Kirsten Deasey

Early Learning Coordinator - District Programs & Services

School District No. 46 (Sunshine Coast)

PO Box 2148, Sechelt, B.C. V0N 3A0

Office Telephone:  (604) 885-6782

Cell Phone:  (604) 741-5787

Kindergarten Challenging Behaviour Classroom Toolkits

In collaboration with our Special Programs staff, Delta put together a toolkit for every Kindergarten and K/1 classroom in the district in an effort to help teachers respond positively and proactively to children with social-emotional challenges.  The toolkit included a Resource Binder, Visual Schedule, Classroom Rules and Expectations Posters, Student Materials, Class Social Stories, Individual Social Stories, and Home-School Communication Tools.  Where appropriate French Translation, of Student Materials and class visuals were also given to French Immersion classes.  Also included was a literature kit and we have begun collaborating on units/ideas for incorporating SEL teaching goals into the year in a way that is integrated both with the overall program and other curricular areas.

Most documents can be viewed or downloaded online

Delta Kindergarten Social-Emotional-Learning-Classroom Tools