PRINCE ALBERT — Saskatchewan Rivers School Board trustees got a good look at what one school is doing to increase student achievement during the board’s final meeting on Oct. 21 before trustee elections.
The subject was one of several brought up by a delegation from Vincent Massey School, led by Principal Harriet Tomporowski and including Dream Catcher coach Carla Penner-Henry and Literacy Support Teacher Chelsea Gunville.
The group made a presentation to the board on the journey their school has been on over the past few years to develop effective practices in teaching literacy and implementing experiential play-based learning (EPBL).
"What they're doing is working very diligently on the implementation of our literacy model which has a focus on phonemic awareness and phonics instruction, along with shared reading,” Superintendent Jennifer Hingley said.
"Additionally, we have emphasized through our strategic plan, experiential play-based learning (EPBL), which really takes curriculum concepts and (asks) ‘how can we make this experiential? How can we have students manipulate things, (and) create things to apply their knowledge and to learn new things?’”
Hingley said the strategies align with the division’s strategic plan goals of joyful learning and focus on learning and innovation.
Vincent Massey switched to a literacy goal school in 2021. Teachers have taken on the resource MindsON and the teaching methods and practices from Building Thinking Classrooms to elevate their work.
"They would be working with recognizing the classroom environment, as the other teacher in the class, we refer to the classroom environment as another teacher in the room, and so how we set up our classrooms can really have an impact on learning,” she said.
Classrooms have been redesigned throughout Vincent Massey to implement.
Hingley said that the work at Vincent Massey has been succeeding in the LIP because of Tomporowski’s direction and because they have been focusing on their professional learning goals and how they will achieve that to impact student learning.
“Our key focus is on supporting teachers to make changes in their practice or enhance and strengthen all the good things that they already do and that was clearly evident through Vincent Massey,” Hingley said.
During the delegation, the school leadership said that teachers are feeling empowered by the changes.
Each year as part of the LIP report Hingley brings a different school to present on their success for the board. She said that one reason Vincent Massey was selected for this year was that the board provided additional funding for a literacy support teacher.
"That's a school-based professional learning coach in some of our schools where there's a higher number of students needing support and intervention, and so Chelsea Gunville was that teacher that was highlighted who has led that work in the school building. But that's through additional resources from a board project on literacy and professional development,” Hingley said.
Gunville has moved away from full-time in 2024 and the project is to be completed at the end of the school year in 2025.
"The additional resources will be (ended) but what we will keep on working on is the practices in literacy and experiential play-based learning,” Hingley explained.
“I want to think about that so the work will carry on, but they will have fewer human resources personnel to do the work after next year,” she added.
Hingley said that even after the literacy support teacher leaves the project will be in place and continue to work because the plan is in place.
“That's the hope is that that we will be well on our way because of the team they've had the support to implement these strategies,” Hingley explained.
