Our Focus
2023-2024:
This year, we continue to be committed to the academic excellence, safety and well-being or our school community. We are looking to refresh our ideas and strategies in supporting our learners when connecting literacy (expressing our emotions) to our “SHARP” social responsibility framework. Our staff will be working on a new set of questions to survey our student population to determine where they are at and what they need to feel safe, supported, and successful.
2022-2023:
Our focus this year is to help support our staff, parents and students connect Social Emotional Learning and Literacy through writing and expressing our emotions in different situations.
Since September 2023, our staff, students and parents have scanned, reflected and worked together to provide the best environment for the Kidd Community. We continue to build on our model by doing the following:
- Making stronger connections through school-wide activities
- Using the power of story to increase our feeling vocabulary
- SEL teacher and family partnership
- Reducing student anxiety and worries
- Developing healthy relationship through leadership
- Adult Self-Care
Previous Years
2021-2022:
Our focus this year was to continue to build on connecting Social Emotional Learning and Literacy which we began in the 2020-21 School. year.
Social Emotional Learning continues to be our focus at Kidd as we develop a cohesive school-wide approach to supporting students. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is the process of acquiring the competencies to recognize and manage emotions, develop caring and concern for others, establish relationships, make responsible decisions, and handle challenging situations effectively. SEL competencies comprise the foundational skills for positive health practices, engaged citizenship, and school success (CASEL, 2013). Recent research has determined that effective SEL in schools significantly improves students’ social-emotional skills, attitudes about self and others, and social interactions.
Since September 2022, we have been working toward these themes we surfaced:
- Creating and celebrating connection & belonging @ Kidd
- Increasing our feeling vocabulary
- Reducing student anxiety and worries
- Developing healthy relationship skills with their peers
2020-2021:
Our focus during the 2020-21 school year enabled us to connect Social Emotional Learning and Literacy. Social and Emotional learning is an integral part of education and human development through which students and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, and manage emotions.
Over the past year, our staff re-scanned our learners to find a new direction for our school story because we wanted to find a new path to support and connect our students emotional development . We also had 5 divisions participating in the Student Reporting Policy Pilot (SRPP) and the use of digital portfolios for assessment and reporting as well as two intermediate divisions focused on the Challenged-Based Learning (CBL) program.
During our scan this year, we asked our students some of the following questions:
- Why do we share our emotions and feelings?
- How do you express your emotions and feeling?
- What speaking and listening strategies have you used to share your emotions?
- What writing or reading strategies have you used to share your emotions?
- How can learning about your emotions help you?
- What are your next steps to help you communicate your emotions?