Looking Forward by Looking Back

What an incredible year we have had so far!  We are so fortunate to live where we do and to have the things we do.  This certainly applies to our school as well.  We have come a long way this year, as we are well on our journey towards the "new" David Cameron.  This year, we have been able to successfully blend staffs, students, and PACs to create a school that all can be proud of.  Over the course of the year we have continued to work on the writing skills of our students as well as their physical health and understanding of nutrition.  These have been important areas for us to focus on as a school.  In support of these goals we have had two "Family Grouping Days", with a third scheduled for May, each focusing on these key areas.  We have instituted a School-Wide Write that was done in the Fall with the follow-up assessment to come in May., and we have created our Home Reading Program and Marathon recognition as well.

As we reflect on our successes (and our failures) we begin to look forward to the next school year and where we as a school community should be putting our resources (human and monetary).  It is important to have a few areas that are our focus so that we can ensure a streamlined process and attainable objectives.  Too many goals become frustrating and overwhelming for people.  At this point, we are just beginning to engage in conversations about where we want to put our efforts next year.  As always, we are interested in the perspective of our school community, so if you have areas that you think need to be worked on don't hesitate to contact me at school.

Satisfaction Surveys

My apologies for not being consistent with my blog posts over the last while.  Thanks to those of you that check in to read what I have written.

This month marks the start of our planning toward completing a new school plan.  We have sent home our individual FSA results to families, with the next key data gathering piece being the Ministry Satisfaction Surveys.  

Satisfaction Surveys allow us to gauge the perception that parents, students, and staff have of various facets of our school.  Perceptions can be a tricky thing as we try to discern if it is a true issue with a particular program or simply how we communicate the information to families.  As a result, we often have to spend time looking at the "stories behind the data" in order to make an accurate judgement of where to put our efforts.  While these surveys pose an issue for our teaching staffs from a political perspective they still offer value to the school for parent and student feedback.  This year, we have added a few school specific questions to get a clearer picture for our planning purposes.  The results of the survey will be shared with our staff and School Planning Council to determine what areas emerge as possible areas for development in the next school year.  Information regarding the Satisfaction Surveys has been sent to parents of students in grade 4 specifically, however, any parent may complete the survey, all you need to do is contact the school for a logon number and you are set to complete the survey on-line.

The information that we gain from this and other data sources provide us with a good starting point to investigate and discuss certain issues in greater detail.