Mike Hooker
Superintendent, SD19
Students and staff headed back to school this month in greater numbers than many previous years.
Student enrollment is up across the district, with the highest number of kindergarten children entering school in well over a decade: 107 this year compared to 70-85 in previous years.
This year over 1,000 Revelstoke students, and 20 international students, will attend Columbia Park, Begbie View and Arrow Heights Elementary Schools, and Revelstoke Secondary.
Staff met for two days before the start of school to review student successes, and areas in need of focus, to collaborate and learn together on topics including our redesigned curriculum, quality feedback to students, and building and maintaining healthy learning environments.
In our schools, we are all learners. We ask our students 3 key questions: What are you learning and why is it important? How are you doing with it? What are your next steps? Of ourselves we want to know: What is going on for our learners? How do we know? Why does it matter? These questions help our students take the lead in owning their learning, and guide our planning and work to focus on what is important.
Student responses to questions from tools such as the Provincial Student Learning Surveys and UBC’s Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI) help us understand how our students are feeling about their school, their learning, and their overall health.
Revelstoke provides a very healthy community environment for our children. Not surprisingly, when compared to their provincial peers, our students report higher levels of connectedness to adults, confidence in their ability, and sense of belonging at school. The chart below illustrates the high levels of students in the “Thriving” range, and the very low numbers of students who do not yet have those assets.
The second chart shows the high level of connectedness our students report with adults, which is critical to overall health, well-being, and learning. Finally, information like this helps us focus on those students not yet thriving or connected. As much as school works well for most of our students, for some, we have to be especially aware of the need to look after their needs and ensure their path to success is clear. (Full reports of the MDI and Student Learning Surveys are available on our website)
Please visit www.sd19.bc.ca for more information about your Revelstoke schools.