R. J. Tait Elementary

School Context/Demographics

•Robert J. Tait Elementary School is located at the north-east end of Richmond. It is a small community bordered by business, industry and the north arm of the Fraser River. The catchment area includes a mixture of single-family dwellings and multifamily townhouse complexes.

•There are 331 students enrolled at Tait from 241 families in the community. Twenty four birth countries are represented and about 60% of Tait families speak a first language other than English. 17% of these families are Chinese, 12% are Punjabi, 9% are Tagalog, and the balance of the 24 language families come from all over the world.

•The Tait Staff includes 13 FTE classroom teachers and 2.5 FTE support teachers, 6 educational assistants, an area counsellor (.3), a district speech and language pathologist (.2), an educational psychologist, a school nurse, 1.4 FTE secretaries, 1.2 custodians and 2 noon-hour supervisors.

•Tait is a fully integrated school with a strong support team for our special needs students. The school also offers services in Learning Assistance, English as a Second Language and an outstanding music/band program.

•The school is organized using a philosophy of multi-aging and all classes have combined age groupings. It is a facility with 15 regular classrooms, a computer lab, a library, a multipurpose room, another small open area and a gym.

•Tait PAC is a vibrant supportive group which meets monthly to help support school goals.

• More information can be found at http://www2.sd38.bc.ca/Tait-Web/principal's message

Strengths

•The students are keen learners

•We have an outstanding professional learning community dedicated to promoting our school-wide goal

• We have a supportive PAC who are truly partners with the school

• We have the human and monetary resources to fulfill our goals

Challenges

•The ongoing challenge is to meet the needs of all the learners in our school.

Mission Statement

"Our commitment is to provide the best possible learning opportunities for each~individual within a safe and caring community."

Current Goal for 2007/08

To continue to develop more effective readers– readers whose comprehension shows an ability to make connections, to make inferences, and establish main ideas in different subject areas.

Our goal is about...

• continuing with our momentum; that is increasing the skills and process, knowledge, or competence of all students over time, particularly developing readers whose comprehension shows an ability to make connections, make inferences, and establish main ideas.

• reconstructing our Resource Support Model to include a team coming into each classroom to work on literacy centres aligned with our school goal.

• structures being created to allow for smaller groups experiencing more intensive instruction geared specifically to their needs

• changing student perceptions and self-confidence related to reading

This is a continuing goal.

Analysis and Rationale

• We want to capitalize on the progress and momentum we have made with our current reading goal.

• We recognize from the research that, in order for effective reading for information strategies to become integrated into regular classroom practice, it will take 3-5 years of conversation, study, and feedback. (Joyce and Showers; Fullan and Hargreaves)

• We will analyze our students based on 3 reading assessments throughout the year, book-ended by two DART assessments.

• Through analysis of our 07/08 reading assessments, we noticed that students were making progress with their ability to make connections and find main ideas. Additional effort is required to continue to develop students’ background knowledge and worldly experiences such that they are better equipped to make inferences and make connections.

• Our school goal, and the restructuring of our model in which we provide support, is in line with our school mission statement where it states "Our commitment is to provide the best possible learning opportunities for each~individual within a safe and caring community."

Evidence-based Sources/Data

The sources of data we will continue to use to track student progress in Non-fiction Reading include the following:

• The Performance Standards for Reading for Information - Through the use of the Performance Standards, classroom teachers will develop classroom-based measures to employ various teaching strategies to meet the needs within the class - needs that are revealed through the assessment process.

• DART assessments - we will desegregate the data for the purpose of analysis. The information learned through the DART process and PS Tracker data will allow us to track data over time.

• Ongoing classroom observation and student work samples will also be evidence.

Indicators of Success

• DART and Performance Standards scores in Reading for Information will show steady increases over time. From the data we glean from the 08 Spring DART assessments, we will compare that to previous year’s data and see trends of our students across the board moving up levels in the Performance Standards.

• All staff will continue to be able to share examples of their inquiry into the new Instructional Strategies we are learning at Collaborative Planning days (Third days), Professional Development Days dedicated to our school wide-goal and our “Now What” meetings where the classroom team (Teacher, Resource Teacher and EA) set their action plans.

Planned Actions Taken to Address Goals

Strategies for Improvement

• We will continue to host five formative assessments during the year: a Fall DART assessment, 3 standard reading assessments, followed by a final spring DART assessment. The information learned from these strategies will be support structures that allow teachers and the resource team to make informed decisions about which instructional strategies the staff will employ.

Other collaborative structures that are built in to support the implementation of this goal are as follows:

• Focused professional development to add to teachers’ repertoire of instructional strategies

• Identify all students who are Not Yet Meeting Expectations according to the Performance Standards for Reading For Information. Continue to work as a school-based team to understand why the student is struggling in reading, and develop a support plan and allocate resources to better meet the individual needs of the student.

Aligned Structures

• Our Professional Development Committee is explicitly determined to connect our Pro-D to our school wide goal.

• Our school hosts “third days” where the day is broken into thirds, and similar grade-group staff is released by TOCs to meet to discuss school goal development.

• Continuing to find creative ways to release staff so that they can meet will be examined by the administrators.

• Continue to have a standing school goal discussion item placed on our staff meeting agendas

• Continue to host weekly assemblies where we celebrate our reading goal.

• Our staff has reconstructed how we will be delivering Resource Support, where a team (that can include members of the Resource Teachers, Educational Assistants, Teacher/Librarian, and/or School Administrators) will come into classrooms during specific times to work on literacy initiatives specific to the school goal and the needs of that class.

• UBC, CITE and SFU student teachers have aligned themselves with our goal.

• Continue direct regular communication regarding our reading goal with the parent community through newsletters, website, orientations, family nights, “open door afternoons”, Parent “Tea and Talk” sessions and during PAC meetings.

• Our Teacher/Librarian is working explicitly with classroom teachers to enhance our goal

Summary of Progress to Date

• The progress to date is based on the momentum already established for this goal. We have also established structures to allow for adjustments to be made. One of the mandates of the Resource Team is to adjust to the needs of the various classes as revealed by the assessments along the way. We have a “Big Picture” sheet shows the entire school’s needs and acts a tool for us to make informed decisions about where support is placed. As a feature of this goal is that we are looking to implement this goal in ‘various subject areas’, so by design, adjustments in curricular foci will be made.

All professional development days have been geared specifically to our goal. We have had three guest presenters work with us this year; Faye Brownlie-Literacy, Susan Tse-Science, and Carole Saundry-Math. Each presented to us twice in their curricular areas of specialty. The first time they presented on the theme of ‘making connections’, and the second set of presentations were based on ‘inferencing’.

Communication Strategies

We will continue to communicate to parents the progress on our goal through:

School Newsletters
PAC meetings
Parent information evenings and classroom “open houses”
School website
School Assemblies
Parent “Tea and Talk” Sessions

Where to from here?

For the 2008/09 school year, we will be applying the principles of “Assessment FOR Learning” in two curricular areas:

1) Literacy

2) Math – focusing on the strands of communication and problem solving.

• Our professional Development dates are already set for 2008/09

Sept 26, Oct 24 Dec 5, Feb 20, Apr. 16 (half day), May 15, June 25 (half day)

• Faye Brownlie is secured to support our learning with our literacy goal on September 26th.

• Carole Saundry is secured to support our learning with our math goal on April 16th