Annual Report to the Community

September 2014 – June 2015

Dr John C. Wickwire Academy

Professional LearningOver the past three years, one of our school goals focused on the writing component of literacy development. This year, Stephen Jamieson, literacy mentor with the SSRSB has worked with our teachers to enhance their understanding and skills in using various aspects of literacy instruction across grade levels. Some of the topics addressed were:

Balanced literacy approach in the classroom; Use of time (time to teach, time to practice,

time to share); Structures for planning reading and writing

workshops; Clarification of the progression of word

development.

Data and ResultsOne of the goal measures for our literacy goal is the annual SELL and EXSELL data with comparisons over five years. Our latest results (Spring 2014) show that the percentage of students meeting expectations has improved consistently in grades 3, 4 and 5.

A note from the PrincipalI would like to extend gratitude to all staff, parents and other DJCWA community members for welcoming Jennifer Lemire and myself as your school administrators this year. This was a very busy but productive year for us with many memories of all students we got to know and support throughout the year. Good luck and best wishes to our grade 5 students who will be moving on to South Queens Middle School.

A highlight this year was the opening of the outdoor trail that extends the perimeter of the school grounds. This project would not have been possible without the continued support of our School Advisory Council. The opportunities for extending student learning outdoors can now increase because of this new trail.

Another area of improvement in our school, although not directly linked to our school goals, is the increase in the use of mobile technology. This year, every teacher was equipped an iPad to experiment with its applications in the classroom. Moving forward, grade 4 students will be working with iPads as an alternate tool to show their understanding and achievement of some learning targets that are set for them.

~ Charles Williamson (Principal)

All teachers have also been trained on a 5-step protocol they could adopt to analyze student work during embedded time.

determine next step for instruction and/or intervention.

All other grade levels examined student writing on a regular basis to maximize on how children’s brains learn.approach to help reduce anxiety for some students and to help learning from the classroom to outdoors. This is a well-recognized

Another team provided the staff with sample activities that can extend implementation of PATHS in their classrooms.

All Grade 5 teachers gained a knowledge and skill for the Examples of our teacher teams’ accomplishments this year are:

continuous school improvement goals listed in the next section below.

Teachers at DJCWA completed their third year of participation in embedded time Wednesday afternoons, working in collaborative teams. The purpose of their work during this time is to improve student engagement, learning and achievement. This year, all teams worked on tasks directly related to our

Continuous School Improvement

School Goals

The school’s improvement plan is organized around two goals that were first communicated in 2012-2013.

Goal 1: There will be an increase at each grade level (gr. 1-5) in the percentage of students meeting or exceeding SELL/EXSELL writing expectations.

Goal 2: The number of students reporting moderate or high levels of anxiety will decrease, according to the data collected from the TTFM surveys.

Parents may wonder what school improvement goals look like in the classroom. For instance, one might wonder: How does a school attempt to “meet or exceed SELL/EXSELL writing expectations”? To answer that question, here are a few examples:

Teachers follow a “curriculum map” to track teaching and achievement of essential writing outcomes at all grade levels.

Teachers conduct small group guided writing sessions as a routine part of their language arts program. During “embedded time”, teachers monitor achievement of essential outcomes to inform instruction.

Dr. John C. Wickwire Academy http://www.djcwa.ednet.ns.ca/

311 Port Mouton Road Liverpool, NS B0T 1K0 Telephone: (902) 354-7660