First day in Canadian school - Prince Edward College Institute (PECI) - and was an interesting experience with many similarities to our own system but some distinct differences.
Kids at PECI are primarily monocultural, coming from white middle class backgrounds and therefore do not seem to have some of the challenges that come from our more mullticultural communities from areas of economic disadvantage.
Paul posts facebook and twitter comments promoting the school and disseminating information to both simultaneously using "Tweetdeck" ... Deanna I know you are typing in tweetdeck into a search engine right now!
At this school, as in our own, it is already clear that there are many talented and dedicated teachers who bend over backwards to ensure they do the best for kids learning. Their Student Success Team is very similar to our Learning Support Team, where they bring together some leaders from within the school to discuss individual students to case manage improvement. The thing I really liked is the way they used their database exclusively to refer and then to manage the information flow through the database which then led to a email to all group members so they know who is following up with whom.
The school's facilities look pretty great. School was originally built in 1953 but is maintained well and the rooms for wood Metal and Auto look industry standard. Hospitality facilities, at least in this school, don't seen to be to this standard at this stage.
In the past few years they have had a major upgrade to the office facilities and foyer. Huge foyer, very impressive. Walls throughout the school seem to be clean all the time and free of any grafitti.
Two documents: School Effectiveness Framework (SEF) and School Improvement Plan for Student Achievement (SIPSA) look interesting. Not mindblowingly different from what we do, but will be good to have a closer look to see any insights within them that may be useful to our context.
Visiting a few classrooms tomorrow so will be good to see teachers and kids in action as after all, that's what we are all about.
Lol @ you thinking I would be googling something before reading the end of your post - you were right - but got the topic wrong, Leon!
ReplyDeleteI used Tweetdeck on my Nokia many, many moons ago - so I did not need to google that (I use Twitterific atm)!!! I use a Twitter client because I have my PLN Twitter and my 'popular culture' Twitter - it is easier to use one program than to sign in and out all the time from Twitter! I must say I am a Twitter lurked rather than a Twitter poster!
I set up a IHS Twitter at the same time as I did the school FB page - but - I don't know about you - but I don't think our school community use Twitter very much. At any rate I hear VERY FEW kids even mention Twitter - so I never unveiled and launched it!!!
Anyhow - what I DID google was the SEF and SIPSA documents. Like you, I saw many similarities - but I did find them interesting reading and I do think they will be interesting documents to read and think about some more. I liked the framework's graphical representations of how all the components fit together and flow.
I hope you post some pics of the school at some point!
It seems their use of student data is something we may reflect on in our LST?
What are some of the key challenges staff face with the students in that school? Do they have ANY Brodie's or KerryLee's, Molly's or Anthony's???
Looking forward to your observations from the classroom!