Blog Posts

It is an exciting time to be a literacy teacher. Teaching literacy is a complex job, as it encompasses many discreet parts, each being an important piece in developing a skilled reader. If you visit our elementary schools, you will see many examples of how our teachers are meeting the literacy learning needs of our students in engaging and joyful ways. The Scarborough Reading Rope helps to illustrate these essential components of learning how to read and how interdependent they are.

The ELL Department has continued to build our relationships and learn from colleagues locally and worldwide who are leading culturally sustaining pedagogy. We are continually incorporating, modelling and developing practices that embody all aspects of the Abbyschools Equity Framework. Below are just a few examples of some of the great work that is happening in our district.

As a way of keeping our focus on the teaching and learning in our schools, I have drawn a distinction between the “work”, our primary focus on providing for the educational needs of our students, and the “weather”, the conditions under which we do this work. In uncertain times if we are not careful, we sometimes confuse the two. While it is clearly important to ensure that we are following all the public health protocols, caution must be extended to ensure that this does not become the primary focus of our discourse and practice.

This year, as part of our Secondary Operational Plan and in partnership with the Curriculum Department and Trevor Mackenzie (author of Dive into Inquiry), we are working towards implementing structures and strategies that support inquiry based instructional practices … practices that align with our competency-based curriculum. Through our monthly Staff Learning Opportunities (SLOs), we are providing support and space for our learning communities to collaborate and share ideas.

As we navigate the fourth wave of the pandemic, with an eye to post-pandemic teaching and learning, it has dawned on me that two of the lessons learned from the pandemic might be at odds with each other. With physical distancing being one of the best ways to keep ourselves and kids safe from COVID-19, we saw many classrooms migrate outdoors, at least for part of their instructional experience. This was sage advice given to us by public health, and many classroom teachers were all over it.

This will be a year to remember. I think all of us are happy to put 2020-21 in the rearview mirror. While we did a truly heroic job of navigating the pandemic last year, I think it’s fair to say that none of us wants to do it again. But let’s take a minute to reflect on our efforts. Not only did we live through a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, but we were also able to keep our schools open, take care of each other and – most importantly – fulfill our mission to provide the best possible education to our students.

Over the last three years, our district has moved from a literacy intervention model that required identified elementary students to be bussed to another school for an entire school term to a model that provided literacy intervention at their own school. But how do we ensure students receive the necessary tools to be successful in literacy without the specialist teachers? The secret is in the classroom teacher! 

With the recent Ministry announcement that our schools will be returning to Stage 1 (“near normal”) operations for the coming year, I cannot help but reflect on the enormity of what we have accomplished this year in our province, and particularly here in Abbotsford. Put simply, our staff – all of them – have done a phenomenal job of keeping our schools open and functioning during a global pandemic, the likes of which none of us have ever experienced. This is worthy of celebration and profound gratitude.

As the end of the year inches closer, a group of leaders and teachers are in the process of building something amazing for our students. It started back in March as group of leaders formed an inquiry around two simple questions:

I had the pleasure of visiting W.J. Mouat Secondary school to spend time with students in Connect 12. Connect 12 is an integrated Indigenous course that blends Indigenous ways of knowing with social justice. In a talking circle, I shared my experience growing up in Abbotsford as an Indigenous person and my experience as an Indigenous person working in the Abbotsford School District. I then asked the students what we as educators could do to make schools better.