A School Plan
for Soaring Student Success
2012/2013
1. Mission Statement:
The Blue Jay Elementary School Community is dedicated to develop within each child, the
knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to meet lifelong challenges.
2. School Context:
The Blue Jay Elementary School Community consists of a variety of housing types ranging from single family
homes, some with secondary suites, to townhomes. Some homes and townhomes are rental properties. The school
is in a densely populated area of Abbotsford. On the school site is a portable that houses both a Hand in Hand
Child Care service and Sprouts Preschool.
Blue Jay currently enrolls 17 divisions from kindergarten to grade 5. This is an increase of one division from the
previous year as we welcomed 74 kindergarten students into 4 kindergarten classes. The school hosts the District
Social Development Class (approximately 10 students) and the District Learning and Assessment Centre
(approximately 16 students) per term. The schoolʼs overall population is 395 students (57% male and 43% female).
During the 2011/2012 school year the teaching staff at Blue Jay was supported by a 1.2 Physical Education teacher,
2.0 ESL teacher (an increase of 0.2 from the previous year), 1.0 Learning Assistant teacher, 0.2 Librarian, 0.2
Music, and 0.1 PLC. District support also included 0.2 Counselor, 0.2 Speech and Language and 0.1 Punjabi. One
of our teachers (0.05) also oversees our First Nations program which is funded by the funds generated by the 20
students in this program. The teaching staff is supported by 8 teaching assistants (1 in the L&A Center, 1 in the
Social Development room, and 6 in the regular classrooms) who are funded by LSS. An additional 3 hours of TA
time is funded by the school to support undiagnosed students. In addition Blue Jay has a 0.2 Library Technician, 0.2
Music teacher, and a 1.0 office clerk.
The parent community of Blue Jay provides significant support for the school with fundraising, charity fundraising,
and classroom volunteering. There is a high parental attendance at school functions including: swimming lessons,
parent and teacher conferences, Come Read with Me, and kindergarten weekly nature walks. To address low
attendance at PAC meetings door prizes and free babysitting by Blue Jay alumni was offered. The small but
dedicated group of executive members offered year long hot lunch, milk, popcorn and movie night programs. Five
lunch hour supervisors assist at noon hours (one more than the previous year).
45% of our school population is designated as ESL. The majority of our ESL population speaks Punjabi as a first
language. Vietnamese, Spanish, Loatian, Arabic, Cantonese, Gujarati, Hindi, and Korean make up the balance of
languages spoken in the homes of our ESL population. 6% of our population is Aboriginal. 5.3% of our students
have special education designations.
The staff of Blue Jay has a long history of exposing students to a variety of activities and opportunities within fine
arts, technology, literacy, numeracy, social responsibility and athletics. The schoolʼs goals over the last few years
have focused on writing skills, reading development oral language and social responsibility within a positive overall
school climate. An established school of twenty-three years, Blue Jay has a strong sense of community. Blue Jay
holds a school wide “Move It” assembly three times per month which stresses active participation, physical fitness
and nutrition. The Physical Education program is supplemented by having all students learn swimming and skating.
3. Leadership/Teamwork:
School Planning Team 2011-2012
Acting Principal: Mrs. Bonnie Iftody
Teacher Representative: Entire teaching and TA staff participated, but do not stand in the committee
Parent Representative: Mr. Richard Jensen
Parent Representative:
School Planning Council
- School Planning Council has had parent representation over the years. Parents have attended the annual
District School Planning Council evening workshops over the years although there was not one this year.
- School Planning Council met only once in May to review the school plan.
- There has not been teacher representation on the SPC for several years.
Administration
- provide professional development opportunities for staff (six times yearly PLC meetings)
- allocate budget to support resource acquisition of learning resources for PLC ($8000 for the Nelson PM
Writing Resource)
- schedule and provide release time for teachers to meet as PLC Grade Group meetings (2011/12 – grade
one teachers)
Teachers
- teacher will be provided time to collaborate on ideas and plan for instructional activities related to school
goals
- Teacher will use professional development opportunities designed to grow as a team
- The Learning Services and ESL teachers will support teachers with differentiated instruction and coteaching methods
- Teachers will analyze results from formative assessments and discuss instructional strategies to assist
students who are not fully meeting expectations on individual strands of the performance standards
- Teacher will self assess and determine areas in which they would like assistance with instructional
strategies.
Parents
- Parents will be encouraged to participate in classroom and school activities which support the goals
- Parents will be trained on the school goal of oral language, writing, and numeracy at PAC meetings so they
can provide support and feedback on their childʼs learning.
4. Communication:
Blue Jay Elementary will communicate and make public our improvement goals and the progress made through
the following strategies:
• Blue Jay Elementary Parent Handbook
- It will include a section that has information to parents about our goal and how they can support it (located
in the front section of the school/studentʼs planner)
• Blue Jay Elementary Website
- The school plan is posted on the school website
• Newsletters
- Our bi-monthly newsletter will highlight student work, websites and apps to support learning
• Classroom newsletters
- Classes will publish newsletters that contains information about what they are teaching in writing and/or
numeracy and how their parents can help at home
• Staff Meetings
- Time will be given at staff meeting for staff to share their progress on writing.
• Grade Group Meetings
- Grade group meetings to meet six times throughout the year with a focus on best practice instructional
strategies, resources and assessment.
• School Planning Council Meetings
– For 2011/2012 each term the SPC members will meet to review the plan. However, there has not been a
teacher representative on this committee for a few years.
• PAC Meetings
- Throughout the year the PAC will have the opportunity to participate in discussions based on the goal.
• Parent/Teacher Meetings (Conferences) , Evenings and Student Led Conference
- At the “Open House” and the other conferences throughout the year teachers, parents and students will
discuss the strength in the home-school connection to writing and numeracy.
• Blue Jay Elementary will enhance communication with Aboriginal families by providing a structured program for
the school and where needed additional tutor support for students.
• Blue Jay Elementary will make every effort to communicate the goals and objectives of the plan to families who do
not speak English as their first language by providing interpreters for meetings and translating goal
objectives.
• Blue Jay Elementary will create a bulletin board in the hallway to display pertinent information about the school
goal.
5. Goals 2011/2012
Goal #1 To improve the oral language skills of all Kindergarten students.
Goal #2 To improve the writing skills of all Grade 1 – 3 students with a focus on meaning and conventions.
Goal #3 To improve the numeracy skills of all Grade 4 & 5 students with a focus on strategies.
6. Rationale:
2009/2010
The 2009 – 2010 School Plan took a streamlined approach and for the first time in years the bringing together of the
entire school under one main goal. In this case the goal was to improve student writing and specifically meaning in
writing. The rationale was the low writing assessments in previous years, the fact that writing had not been a school
goal previously, and that a goal of improving writing would benefit all curricula.
Prior to this year some PLC groups were frustrated with the school plan process to date as their ʻfollow your
passionʼ/action research and strategy based work was not accepted by the curriculum department. Following
feedback provided by school district administrators, visits by a Helping Teacher from the Curriculum Department and
the leadership of our PLC rep, it was apparent that the PLCʼs work and the school goals would require further
alignment and that the starting point would need to respond more deeply to school data.
It was decided that by working together as one group on one goal the process could be better understood, a
common language could be developed and results realized.
Previous yearʼs results included 49.1% of Grade 3 students meeting or exceeding expectations on the District Grade
3 Write (District Average is 62%). Although 92% of Grade 4 students met or exceeded expectations on the
Provincial FSA Grade 4 Writing Assessment (District Average is 78%) this score had been inconsistent over the
years. A five year comparison of Grade 4 FSA Writing scores with two other similar sized schools with much higher
ESL populations showed inconsistent results.
2010/2011
Blue Jay assessment scores as well as various discussions took place in May, June and September 2010. It was
decided to choose Writing as the common school wide goal. To support the goal a substantial order was made for
the Nelson resource for all Grade 1 to 5 teachers (kindergarten program had been back ordered). It was also
decided to complete a school wide write in September and May to assess the students in Meaning.
Kindergarten teachers were supported by the full school staff in choosing an oral language goal based on the
successful results realized by one classroomʼs improved oral language skills in the previous year.
September 2010 Professional Development day had the Nelson representative for BC lead us through the PM
Writing program.
The grade level groupings formed the Professional Learning Community. These work within these groups drove the
school goal and school plan. PLC groups met six times per year with the schoolʼs PLC teacher representative. The
principal as well as the hiring of 2 half day TOCʼs for each meeting covered multiple classes with a focus on virtues,
literacy and writing so that the PLCʼs could meet.
April 2011 PLC day had teachers share a favourite lesson from their year. April 2011 Professional Development day
had teachers review the school plan.
May 2011 Staff Meeting had teachers reaffirm their support to continue the School wide goal of Writing again for
2011-2012 school year. In addition to Meaning teachers added Conventions as this was assessed as low in 20092010 and as well this yearʼs September school wide write.
May 2011 School Wide Write letter scores due to the PLC representative by the end of May in time for the District
Celebration.
2011/2012
April 2012 the teachers and support staff were led through a review of the school plan on the noninstructional day. They collectively agreed to continue the goal of writing. However, after being led through a process
of analyzing the school assessment data with the administrator, it was decided that there was an obvious need to
improve math achievement. In the District Numeracy assessment the percentage of students who met and
exceeded expectations dropped from 39.5% in 2009 to 29.6% in 2010 to 20.5% in 2011. The administrator met with
six parents to share the school data and suggest areas of improvement. They too suggested adding numeracy to the
school goals. In a staff meeting in May it was suggested that rather than taking on an extra objective for all grade
levels, the year 2012/13 would narrow the writing objectives to the primary grades and add the numeracy goal to the
intermediates as they had already begun to address numeracy concerns during the 2011/12 year. In 2012/13 the
grade 4 & 5 teachers would develop a common formative assessment, explore instructional strategies and
resources in numeracy.
Through the school budget and in alignment with the District Strategic Plan and the BCEd Plan, we
purchased document cameras and projectors for every classroom. In an effort to target our most at-risk students, we
also purchased 5 ipads to be used specifically, but not exclusively by the LA and 5 more ipads for our Aboriginal
students. One of the favourite apps used by students quickly became Monkey Math. Working with District staff in the
implementation of the IT Roadmap, it was decided to encourage the use of think pads in the classrooms by
dismantling the stationary school lab and use “COWs” – Computers on Wheels. Currently there is one COW in the
school, but this is soon to be increased to three.
Using the co-teaching method, the ESL teachers have worked with various classes using the PM Writing
resource to support student writing.
7. Objective for 2012/2013:
Objective #1 By the end of May 2013 all Blue Jay Kindergarten students will be able to:
- reproduce with 100% accuracy a minimum of 7 of the 15 sentences on the Oral Language Assessment
Objective #2 By the end of May 2013 all Blue Jay Grade 1 to 3 students will be able to:
Grade 1: create straightforward personal writing and representations that express simple ideas, feeling, likes and
dislikes.
Grade 2: create personal writing and representations that express connections to personal experiences, ideas, likes
and dislikes.
Grade 3: create a variety of clear personal writing and representations that express connections to personal
experiences, ideas, and opinions.
Objective #3 By the end of May 2013 all Blue Jay Grade 4 & 5 students will be able to:
- to be determined
8. Performance Indicators and Targets:
See School Data Page
9. Actions:
Objective #1
- This objective will be led by the PLC grade grouping which will include Kindergarten teachers.
- time scheduled monthly for collaboration time
- music scheduling to allow for weekly music/oral language lessons for the entire year for all k classes
- kindergarten classroom teacher to attend music/oral language lesson
- ESL and LA support classroom teacher with Talking Tables program
- use Letʼs Talk About It – Oral Language Assessment in September and May
- continued PALS program although discuss alternative delivery or scheduling to increase attendance
Objective #2
- This objective will be led by the PLC grade groupings of Grades 1 to 3 teachers
- time scheduled monthly for collaboration time
- ESL in class support for writing in addition to pull-out
- student writing featured in school newsletter
- student writing featured in school assemblies
- student writing as a focus for buddy groups
- common resources for Grades 1 to 3 include: PM Writing, Developing Writer, Writing A to Z and BC Performance
Standards
- additional common resource for Grades 4 to 5 include: Excellence in Writing
Objective #3
- This objective will be led by the PLC grade groupings of Grades 4 & 5 teachers
- In 2011/12 the grade 4 & 5 teachers invested in the Jump Math resources.
- Two grade 5 teachers attended Jump Math workshops.
- time scheduled monthly for collaboration time
- attend math in-service to develop common instructional strategies
- exploration of a common resources to support improvement of numeracy, including online and apps.
10. Progress/Results Related to Objective:
Objective #1
To this date we have committed to a third year focus on increasing the Oral Language Skills for kindergarten
students as 73% of all our kindergarten students were not yet meeting or minimally meeting grade level expectations
in oral language skills in September 2010. Our results:
- 35% of Kindergarten students were able to reproduce at least 7 of 15 sentences on the Oral Language
Assessment by May 2009 (one class)
- 80% of Kindergarten students were able to reproduce at least 7 of 15 sentences on the Oral Language
Assessment by May 2010 ( one class)
- 56% of Kindergarten students were able to reproduce at least 7 of 15 sentences on the Oral Language
Assessment by May 2011
Objective #2
To this date we have committed to a second year focus on increasing the writing skills of our students in Grades 1 to
3 in the area of meaning. In September 2010:
85% of grade one students were not yet meeting or minimally meeting grade level writing expectations in the area
of meaning.
72% of grade two students were not yet meeting or minimally meeting grade level writing expectations in the area of
meaning.
56% of grade three students were not yet meeting or minimally meeting grade level writing expectations in the area
of meaning.
- 72 % of Grade 1 students will fully meet or exceed expectations in the area of meaning in personal writing
- 72 % of Grade 2 students will fully meet or exceed expectations in the area of meaning in personal writing
- 67 % of Grade 3 students will fully meet or exceed expectations in the area of meaning in personal writing
Objective #3
To this date we have committed to an additional goal in numeracy.
- ___% of Grade 5 students will fully meet or exceed expectations in the District Numeracy Assessment