Willway Elementary

School Overview

School Identity and Context

Willway Elementary is a K-5 school located in Langford, BC, Canada. Willway sits on Coast Salish territory, specifically the unceded territory of the Lekwungen speaking people. Willway has an increasingly diverse student population with an increase in ELL student learners comprised of 9% of our current student population and an increase of students with diverse needs currently at 15% of our student population. Our Inclusion Support Team, Classroom Teachers, Education Assistants, Student Engagement Facilitator, Early Childhood Educator and Admin Team work to support the learning needs of this diverse group of students. We also have push in support from District ELL and ESD Teachers and a School Counsellor.

Willway is located near Goldstream provincial park, which serves as a backdrop and area for place-based learning for all students in the school. Approximately 225 students will be starting at Willway in 11 divisions for September 2024.

The staff at Willway is a collaborative, supportive team, with each member contributing to the overall positive atmosphere in the school. The parents at Willway show support of their children in a variety of ways through fundraising, volunteering on hot lunch days, field trips and joining in on student led conferences and attending performances and sports games. We welcome guest speakers, indigenous role models and community members in to speak to classes to share their knowledge and stories with the students and staff.

Our main belief at Willway is we want to be an inclusive learning community for students that is respectful, safe and fun. We work together as a team to develop positive and caring relationships with students to support that belief.

Our Learners

What do we know about our learners?

We know that our students would benefit from more focused support with their numeracy skill development. Currently 35% of our learners are not yet proficient in numeracy.

Social Emotional Learning continues to be an area of focus for students and staff. Positive and caring relationships are the basis of all interactions with our students. We have focused on using the Zones of Regulation, executive functioning skills and mindfulness. Our Student Engagement Facilitator runs a daily bootcamp in consultation with our Occupational Therapist. We have additional spaces within the school that offer both gross and fine motor activities, and a 'calm cave' for students needing to regulate or connect with an adult. Classrooms have break spaces or quiet corners for students to access to provide brain breaks, movement breaks and mindful moments throughout the day. We have continued to incorporate classroom visual schedules for teachers to use in all grades to support all students in classrooms.

What evidence supports what we know about our learners?

Our Student Voice

Below is information from the BC Ministry of Education Student Learning Survey results for grade 4 students and SD 62 Equity Survey results for grade 4/5 as student input. We are looking to additional ways to generate students' input and voice in our school planning process.

In this year’s Student Learning Survey results

75% indicated that they felt welcomed at school all or most of the time
70% indicated that they felt safe at school most or all of the time
85% indicated that they are learning about Indigenous People at school all, most or some of the time
59% indicated that they are learning about local First Nations languages all, most or some of the time
71% indicated that they agree or strongly agree that they are getting better at Math

Grade 4/5 Student Equity Results

58% of students indicated that they saw their culture reflected in their classroom always or sometimes - 14% indicated no answer or did not complete
70% of students indicated that they spent time learning outdoors always or sometimes – 12% indicated no answer or did not complete
72% of students indicated that children in their classrooms were kind and caring always or sometimes – 9% indicated no answer or did not complete
77% of students indicated that if they had a problem, they were comfortable asking an adult for help always or sometimes – 12% indicated no answer or did not complete
86% of students hear the Territorial Acknowledgement at school always or sometimes - 12% indicated no answer or did not complete

Focus and Planning

What focus(es) emerge as goals to pursue?

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Indigenous Education

Intellectual Development

Social Emotional Learning

School Goal 1

Staff decided we needed to change our focus to Numeracy in order to support learners to further develop their skills in this area. This year was a year of learning for our teachers in preparation for implementation in September 2024. Our Summary of Learning Reports indicate that 35% of our students are not yet proficient in Numeracy.

Our goal is to improve our students' numeracy skills through the use of a school-wide assessment tool used to inform teaching in the fall and assess skill development in the spring, as well as through the use of shared and consistent numeracy resources supported by the District Curriculum Transformation Team.

Strategic Plan Goal

Learning

Strategic Plan Learning Objectives

Provide opportunites for learners to develop critical and creative thinking skills.

Action Plan

connect with Curriculum Transformation Team regarding Numeracy instruction
learn about current and available assessment tools that can be used across Grades K - 5
begin using consistent assessment tool throughout the school beginning in September 2024
learn about current and available learning resources for Numeracy instruction
collaborate with same grade teachers to assess students in the fall, then plan instructional units and re-assess student achievement in the spring

School Goal 2

Continue to bring awareness and visibility to the SENĆOŦEN language.

Strategic Plan Goal

Engagement

Strategic Plan Engagement Objectives

Further the goals of the Na'tsa'maht agreement following the objectives of 'One Mind' and 'One Spirit'.

Action Plan

Strategies:

Create resources that have SENĆOŦEN words, shapes, numbers on them to incorporate into classrooms
incorporate words in the announcements
have students share the Territorial Acknowledgement daily on the announcements
use SENĆOŦEN words on our monthly bulletin boards and around the school
add SENĆOŦEN words to regular items in the school ie. classroom, washroom etc.

Actions:

Student and adult modelling to use on the announcements
Teachers sign up to sponsor the monthly bulletin board and add a couple of SENĆOŦEN words into their teaching and on the board.
Use first voices app to practice pronunciation and learn language
create new seasonal felt boards with SENĆOŦEN words
complete primary resource binder with themed language

How can the district support your goals?

Curriculum

Inclusive Education

Na’tsa’maht Indigenous Education

Professional Development and Training

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Reflect, Adjust, Celebrate

Indicators of progress

Indicators of progress connected to Goal 1

Indicators of progress connected to Goal 2

How will we communicate and celebrate our progress?

Progress and Evidence to date

This year our teachers participated in a couple of school-wide teacher professional development opportunities to learn more about the First Steps in Math assessment tool. The Curriculum Transformation Team provided us with release time and Curriculum Coordinator support to do this learning. The Curriculum Transformation Team also provided each teacher with a full binder of assessment tools ready to use for next school year.

We continued to make progress with increasing awareness, use and visibility of SENĆOŦEN language through monthly moons bulletin board displays created by different classes each month. Our primary SENĆOŦEN language binder was completed as a resource for primary teachers to use in their classrooms. Territorial Acknowledgement was done by students on our daily announcements. We also chose and created two more themes to display new felt seasonal bulletin boards using SENĆOŦEN language ready to use next school year.

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