William Burgess Elementary School
Our School Improvement Plan
Literacy
Written communication skills remain our priority, with a school focus on the strategies of accountable talk, a focus on student/teacher metacognition, the use of co-created success criteria, anchor charts and student exemplars, the use of descriptive feedback, and the use of guiding questions focusing on BIG IDEAS. We continue to improve our teaching on literacy skills as demonstrated in student’s ability to answer complex thought provoking open response questions. Our 2014 EQAO reading data shows that 73% of all participating students scored at level, while 82% of all participating students scored at level in writing.
Numeracy
Mathematics is one of our many strengths at William Burgess. In teaching math,we focus on the Big Ideas and the process of Reasoning and Proof. Through rich problem solving tasks,students demonstrate their ability to think critically in complex ways. Using many of the literacy strategies mentioned above, as well as task differentiation, manipulatives, three part lessons, banshow and math congress, our goal is to provide high quality, engaging mathematical tasks.
Our 2014 EQAO math data shows that 67% of all participating students scored at level.
Pathways
William Burgess offers preventative and proactive measures to support reading abilities of late Senior Kidegarten and early Grade One students through their transition. Early every fall, struggling grade one students are selected to partner with a trained PAL (Partner in the Aquisition of Literacy Skills) parent volunteer. We are also fortunate to have a trained Reading Recovery teacher on staff, who works daily, offering one to one support with our most struggling readers. Through daily and individualized support, students review and learn basic reading fundamentals; including phonemic awareness, vowel sounds, decoding strategies, reading fluency and voice, and punctuataion.
Community, Culture & Caring
As a school, we are focusing on the important life skill of self-regulation;defined as the ability to monitor,maintain and change the level of alertness so that it is appropriate to a given task. Students continue to learn and practice a variety of mindfulness strategies, including deep breathing exercises, yoga poses, and sensory activities. As a school, are grounded in the findings of Dr. Stuart Shanker’s book Calm, Alert and Learning,while focusing on the lessons planned out in the Alert Program and the Minds Up Curriculum. Students have come to identify "how their engine is running" and learn strategies to downregulate or upregulate their engines as needed.