Diefenbaker School Story 2024

Diefenbaker school story goal for this year focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Our work with our students focused on Inclusion goal of Kindness. We have used common language and “I can” statements in teaching our students Kindness to self, Kindness to others and Kindness to place.  This year, students continued to learn about what this means and moreover, have had opportunities to practice and apply their knowledge of kindness in their classes and school-wide in family Bulldog team activities.

As a staff, during professional days we have built on inclusive learning by focusing on teaching diverse perspectives and centering Indigenous ways of knowing in our lessons. 

Throughout the school year we have integrated our focus during these activities:

• Weekly resource team meetings
• Monthly Staff meeting discussions, reviewing our strengths as a school and next steps
• Professional Days: working with our Indigenous Teacher Consultant
• Student-led assemblies
• Student morning announcements
• Student-led family Bulldog team lessons
• Staff Innovative inquiry group: Mathematizing Children’s literature, a different perspective in looking at stories.

We have used the framework, Spiral of Inquiry to gather data on our progress and effectiveness in achieving our goal of learning and applying diversity, equity and inclusion at our school.  We have asked our staff these questions:  What is going on for our students? How do we know? Why does it matter?

We have examined a variety of satellite, map and street data to measure our progress (Safir and Dugan, 2021). We have particularly used street data which are personal experiences of our students, staff and parent community. These data are strength-based and point us in the next steps that we need to take.  They build on culturally responsive education that honours the voices of our students.  We have also used map data, such as surveys to provide us with useful information on the learning trends at our school.

Using the Spiral of Inquiry, we have engaged in discussions with our staff as to what our strengths are as a school community.  We then met with classroom teachers to determine intentional focus for their class and engaged in what learning and actions will look like for this school year.  Finally, we have checked with staff as to if we are making enough of a difference in learning for our students. 

As a staff, our scan for strengths included using consistent language to teach inclusion and kindness, seeing new friendships blossoming especially for so many new students to our school, teamwork sportsmanship, confidences and taking the time to name and notice these positive traits.

For our next steps, we planned for more school-wide team building activities, noticing small brave acts of kindness that made a difference and a revised school slogan that would include kindness umbrella to further help our students practice being inclusive.

Throughout the year, both individually in classes and school-wide, we have engaged our students in these activities.  Our intermediate school leadership team has led our younger students in Kindness umbrella initiatives such as:

• Pink Shirt assembly and kindness challenge weeks
• Bulldog family team lessons on kindness to self and to place
• Fun day focused on small acts of kindness and helpfulness
• Morning announcements featuring student quotes on kindness
• McMath Secondary visits and teaching on kindness and empathy
• Buddy classes learning

This evidence post focuses on the Check phase of the Spiral of Inquiry and on the data that we have gathered as we listened to our staff, students and parents.  

Staff voice

We met with individual classroom teacher and resource teams to discuss each division’s progress on their intentional focus for the year.  We were interested in responses to the following questions:

• What evidence do we have demonstrating that we are making a difference? 
• What steps will we take to support students who are currently disadvantaged? 
• How will we involve learners at the Checking stage? 

These common threads emerged from our discussions. Our teaching staff noticed: 

• Stronger social skills in many students by the end of the year
• Great personal and social awareness as well as awareness of diversity in students
• The learning process became important for our students not only the end product
• Students’ self-regulation has improved over the year as a result of learning more about kindness to self
• Classroom sense of community has improved as a result of working on kindness to others, students were able to better resolve conflicts
• Meaningful opportunities for self-reflection and check-ins helped improved students’ writing and resulted in a positive attitude toward creative writing
• Focus on kindness to self and self-regulation resulted in greatly improved reading skills in primary classes
• Focus on kindness to others has resulted in more respect toward guest teachers and more effective learning with guest teachers
• Focus on risk-taking has improved students’ quality of projects

Student voice on learning about Kindness to place:

Students have been learning about Kindness to place by walking around our school neighbourhood and taking close-up photos of the natural world. Here is what our students said and learned:

• What I see:

When I zoom in at nature, I see a lot more, such as a photo of this droplet (see attached)

• How I see it:

When I slow down, to take a look at a natural object, I actually look at it closer and see more (see attached photos)

• Why:

Slowing down and zooming in helps me understand nature better.

I appreciate the beauty of nature, daisies, raindrops etc.

My curiosity is sparked.  I begin to wonder and ask interesting questions about our natural world and what we can do better to protect it and care for it.

I now see details!  My learning is deeper!

Parent voice

Parents have emailed us throughout the year examples of many older students taking time to say hello to their younger students and to ask how they are doing. 

During our PAC meetings, parents have expressed a sense of welcoming community and working together at our school as a result of our focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.

During the Check phase, we have also looked at map data by examining the results of Student Learning Surveys. Here are some of the examples:

Grade 4

• Is school a place where you feel like you belong:

Last year Grade 4s reported 17% all of the time, this year 32% felt they belong all the time.

Close to 90% of our students feel they belong at our school either some, most or all of the time.

• I am happy at my school.

Last year 60% of students reported that they feel happy at our school. This year, 75% reported that they feel happy at our school.  Over 95% of students reported that they feel happy some, most or all of the time.

Grade 7

• 89% of Grade 7 students reported that they feel they belong at school some, most or all of the time.
• 85% reported that they feel welcome at school some, most or all of the time.

Next steps

We have worked hard on our goals this year as a school. We have celebrated our students’ progress and accomplishments.  In our future work, we strive for every student at our schools to feel they belong and are learning more to their full potential.

During our staff meeting discussions, our staff brought up the need to deepen students’ kindness to self by teaching them perseverance in challenging tasks, growth mindset and the joy of challenging themselves in their learning.

The staff also pointed out to continue to work on kindness to place to help all our students feel a greater sense of belonging and helping them better take care of spaces at our school.

Our students expressed that although many students at our school are inclusive and kind, some students still need opportunities to learn to do that.  Students appreciated the daily morning announcements and reminders of examples of how we can care for each other.  They have also really enjoyed working in their family teams and connecting with other students and adults in the school. They would like to continue to do that next year.