Student Success Planning Annual Report 2015-2016

Student Success Planning (SSP) School Improvement Plan Annual Report

Barton Consolidated School

Tri County Regional School Board

Date 2015/16 School Year Introduction

Community and School Context

Barton Consolidated School opened its doors in January 1960. Our school is located on Saint Mary’s Bay, in Barton, Digby County, Nova Scotia. It serves the communities of Barton, Brighton, North Range, Plympton, and South Range. Barton includes students in grades Primary to Grade Six. Jason Murphy is the current principal at Barton; this is his first year in this position. Our current teaching staff includes 5 full time Teachers including the principal.

Barton currently has a school population of 63 students.

The Barton Consolidated School is supported by an extremely supportive Home and School Association. They are dedicated to providing quality educational programming to the students of Barton Consolidated. They support the school financially through fund raising throughout the academic year. They also assist in workdays, volunteering to aid instruction, preparing special events, attending regular meetings, and being positive role models for our students.

Barton offers a hot lunch program 5 days a week as well as daily canteen selections. Hot lunches are available at a reasonable price and follow the Food and Nutrition Policy for Nova Scotia Schools. Students eat their lunch in their classrooms. A free breakfast program is also offered daily and is open to all students 5 days a week. This program is support by volunteers from the school community.

Barton School leads the way in the TCRSB with the Health Promoting School Program including being highlighted at the Provincial HPS Showcase for two years. This is the tenth year our school has been a Healthy Promoting School. The school team has met on a regular basis, once a month throughout the year. Jane Cunningham, nutritionist for the South West Regional Health authority has been facilitating our meetings. During this past year our enrollment has continued to rise. We increased from 46 students in the 2013-14 year to currently having 63 students enrolled. Many parents are looking to our school for an environment of good academic basics and healthy social environment.

Our staff works very hard to deliver excellent programming and regularly meets to discuss and deal with social and academic issues. We hold regular staff, PD, PEBs, CSI and Collaborative Learning Team meetings. We look forward to providing data to prove the success of our new goals.

Our staff also seeks professional development to enhance their daily delivery of programs.

Our PD focused on topics that will support the achievement of our goals, using learning targets and cultural proficiency being a couple topics for discussion. Our staff also met regularly in collaborative teams, time was built into their schedule for 30 minutes every 6 days. They are using this time to discuss topics around our SSP goals as well as new curriculum implementation.

Working towards school Improvement

The following are activities our students were involved in during the 2015-2016 school year.

Physical Activities Community sports Running Club After school Basketball Skating Grade P-6 Kids In Motion Grade P-3

Social and School Climate Programs Monthly Barton Bulletin Book buddies Netbooks Al Bernard- magician Fruit and Veggie sticker program PEBs program and reward draws Student jobs- recycle, compost, flag, lunch trays, etc Lunch with the principal Website and social media for sharing more info and links Specialty Art classes with SchoolsPlus Two Community Concerts Remembrance Day Service RCMP Liaisons- community support and safety worker-Cont. Colin Helm WOW Reading challenge Kwanza presentation- Carmelita Johnson African Drumming and Dancing from Maritime Academy for African Dance Dave Atkinson-Author of Wereduck

CSI GOALS -2015-2016

Goal 1: By 2016-17, provincial assessments will show that 50% of our students have reached the outcomes in numeracy.

The strategies for our Math goal were as follows.

1. Incorporate new teaching tools into our curriculum delivery including Mad Minute and IXL.

2. Use Collaborative Team time to share and develop our methodologies.

3. We will develop monthly math challenges.

Success Indicators: Data on the completion of Mad Minutes and the level of success by students shows that students improved in the various skills worked on. Student engagement with the IXL program was strong and data collected from the program showed that students found success practicing their skills at school and home. Collaborative team meeting minutes were kept. The information shows evidence of discussion around student achievement including discussions of AFRI data, Provincial Assessment Data, Monthly Math Challenges. The provincial assessment Math Item Descriptions were also analyzed during these meetings. Discussions took place around using learning targets to improve student learning and a presentation was given by a TCRSB Math Mentor. Monthly Math Challenges were developed. Students were encouraged to participate by classroom teachers. Participation in the challenges was strong for most of the challenges.

Data: The main source of data that led to the formation of this goal came from the provincial assessment results, Item Descriptions from the provincial assessments, class assessments and report card data. Moving forward the Assessment for Responsive Instruction data will help determine the direction of our goals.

Data analysis: Next school year, 2016/17 we will measure our success in achieving this goal. According to 2015 provincial assessment data 63.6% of our grade 4 students reached a level 3 or 4 compared to 0% in 2014. According to the same data 75% of our grade 6 students achieved a level 3 or 4 compared to 41.7% in 2014. These numbers indicate that we have already achieved a level of success with this goal. While it may seem like we have achieved this goal from this data we anticipate a drop in the number of students who achieve a level 3 or 4 on the grade 6 provincial assessment in September 2016. Our current report card data shows a number of our current grade 3 and 5 students earning As and Bs on their Term 2 Report Card. This data shows that our students are showing improvement, especially our current grade 5 class and is significant as we will measure our achievement of the goal by the provincial assessment results.

Actions to be taken on this goal for the 2016-17 school year: Re-evaluate and improve on strategies where necessary Participate in more PD and CLTs as well as continue work to make CLTs focused on student improvement. Continue to work on developing best practices Analyse AFRI data Goal 2 We will improve reading comprehension scores as measured by the provincial assessment by 10% in 2016, 2017, and 2018 as compared to data from 2012, 2013, and 2014.

The strategies for our Literacy goal were as follows.

1. Use TCRSB staff to identify and help implement teaching strategies through discussions and professional development.

2. Use Collaborative Team time to share and develop our methodologies.

3. Integrate the teaching of reading comprehension through subject areas.

Success Indicators: Teachers attended various PD sessions on the implementation of our new integrated curriculum and use of the workshop model. Evidence of the workshop model is evident throughout our school as teachers continue to refine their skills with this method of instruction. Collaborative team meeting minutes show evidence of discussion around integrating our curriculum, reading levels and ways to improve our reading scores. Use of learning targets was an important part of our PD goal, there is evidence of use of learning targets in classrooms and as part of CLT discussions. As this is the first year of this goal we will analyze and compare data of the results of the provincial assessments that will be written in 2016. Report card data shows that 20 of 24 students in grades 4-6 are earning an A or B on their term two report card for the Reading and Viewing strand of ELA.

Data: The main source of date that led to the formation of this goal came from the provincial assessment results, Item Descriptions from the provincial assessments, class assessments, and report card data. Moving forward the Assessment for Responsive Instruction data will help determine the direction of our goals.

Data analysis:

Next school year we will begin to assess our success with this goal. Our school population is small and the high or low achievement level of one or two students can have a large impact. We will analyze our data and take an average over three years and compare it to an average of three previous years (2012, 13, 14) to give us a larger sample size and demonstrate consistent improvement over a number of years. Our report data for this school year show that 20 of 24 students in grades 4-6 are earning an A or B for the Reading and Viewing strand of ELA. This data is showing a level of success with our upper elementary students. Term 2 report card data for grades 1-3 shows that 23 of 33 students are currently earing an A or B for the Reading and Viewing strand.

Actions to be taken on this goal for the 2016-17 school year: Re-evaluate and improve on strategies where necessary Participate in more PD and CLTs as well as continue work to make CLTs focused on student improvement. Continue to work on developing best practices Analyse AFRI data

Goal 3 We will increase, to 85%, the extent to which our school addresses matters related to racial equity and cultural proficiency.

1. We will invite guests from different cultures to share their experiences with our students.

2. Bring awareness to cultural celebrations throughout the year. (ex: holidays around the world)

3. Incorporate racial equity in our teaching.

Success Indicators: School staff found a number of ways to incorporate the teaching of different cultural practices into their teaching while working towards this goal. This year we had presentations on Kwanzaa as well as an African dance, drumming and culture presentation from the Maritime Center for African Dance. Teachers also attended a number of PD sessions with a focus on cultural proficiency in a number of subject areas including music and physical education. Teachers have found a number of ways to teach cultural proficiency alongside of integrating cultural proficiency into their curriculum. Some examples include learning songs and dances from different cultures and singing songs from different cultures in our concerts.

Data: Our current data from our Getting to Great survey shows that we are close to meeting our goal. According to the survey 83.3% of our grades 4-6 students feel “they are never treated unfairly compared to other students because of their culture or race.”, while only 8.3% of the same students feel they are treated unfairly every day or most days. According to the parent version of the Getting to Great survey 85.7% of P-6 parents believe their child’s race and ethnicity are honoured and respected at school every day or some days, the same percentage of parents believe that their child’s schoolwork included material from different races and cultures every day or some days. Our data shows that only 8.3% of 4-6 students on the Getting to Great survey believe their schoolwork never includes material from different races and cultures and all students believe they learn about different cultures in their communities every day, most days or some days.

Data analysis: This data shows that we are getting close to reaching our goal around teaching cultural proficiency. We still have some work to do around discussing the reasons for our goal and incorporating work and material from other cultures. From the data it seems probable that some students and parents are unaware of the work we are doing and the importance of it.

Actions to be taken on this goal for the 2016-17 school year: Teach students about the reasons for incorporating racial equity in our teaching More communication with parents/guardians about what we are doing to teach cultural proficiency and why we are doing it Continue to develop ways to incorporate cultural proficiency into our work on a daily basis. Continue to explore ways to bring representatives from various communities and cultures into our school.

Principal’s Name: Jason Murphy

Shared with SAC Chair? Yes -