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 both Ell student learners and students with diverse needs, with currently over 14% of the student population designated. 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 have push in support from district ELL, ESD teachers and a 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. Willway has grown by a division each year for the past four years and will be gaining a division for the 2023-2024 year as we see the opening of a new elementary school up the road. Approximately 215 students will be starting at Willway in 11 divisions for September 2023.

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 conference 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 have worked to develop some specific tracking measures for literacy at Willway. Students are given reading benchmark assessments twice a year that we track as students go through the grade levels. Willway primary staff worked to create a consistent reading program for all teachers to follow and track student progress. This past year, our school goal was a focus on improving writing using Adriene Gear’s Powerful Writing Structures program. We just began tracking writing assessments also administered twice a year to start gathering data on student writing and students’ progress in writing throughout the grades.

Social Emotional learning has also been an area of focus for students and staff. Positive and caring relationship is the basis of all interactions with our students. We have also focused on the Zones of Regulation, Executive functioning skills and mindfulness. To support students, our student engagement facilitator runs a daily bootcamp in consultation with our Occupational therapist. We have a “Den” room that offers both gross and fine motor activities, and a quiet room for students needing to regulate or connect with an adult. Classrooms also have break spaces or quiet corners for students to access and work to provide brain breaks, movement breaks and mindful moments throughout the day. We have also incorporated classroom visual schedules for teachers to use in the intermediate grades as they do in the primary grades to support all students in classrooms.

We continue to tweak and focus on both of these areas, as well as are looking at using the new math resources the district is providing us to create consistency in math programming and teaching at Willway.

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 student's input and voice in our school planning process.

In this year’s Student Learning Survey results

67.1% indicated that they felt school a place of belonging all of the time and most of the time
75% indicated that they felt welcomed at school all or most of the time
81% indicated that they felt safe at school most or all of the time
66.7% indicated that they had adults who cared about them
66.6 % indicated they liked school most or all of the time

Grade 4/5 Student Equity Results

96% of students indicated that they saw their culture reflected in their classroom always or sometimes- 4% answered rarely or never
96% of students indicated that they spent time learning outdoors always or sometimes – 4% indicated rarely or never
98% of students indicated that children in their classrooms were kind and caring always or sometimes – 2% answered rarely or never
95% of students indicated that if they had a problem, they were comfortable asking an adult for help always or sometimes – 5% indicated rarely or never.

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

Continue with our Writing goal from 2021-2022. To improve writing through the use of Adrienne Gear's powerful writing structures program and school created rubrics that support the curriculum per each grade level.

Strategic Plan Goal

Learning

Strategic Plan Learning Objectives

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

Action Plan

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
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:

Grade 4/5 students paint on wooden blocks to put in primary classrooms
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

How can the district support your goals?

Curriculum

Provide release time or teachers to support us facilitating a school-wide write assessment and the time to assess it (at least twice per year). Continue to provide collaboration and professional development opportunities that support best practice in literacy and numeracy instruction. Continue to increase and improve manipulatives and teaching resources.

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

We have made incredible progress on all of our school goals this year but are very proud of the progress made in our goal of increasing awareness, use and visibility of SENĆOŦEN language. Our entire school learned SENĆOŦEN names for our family groups and other animals in the area. The teachers used Elder Shirley's videos to support this learning as well as creating scavenger hunts and visiting our SENĆOŦEN animals bulletin board. Our Na'tsa'maht cultural program assistant also arranged for our older students to do some language learning with a role model.

Learning SENĆOŦEN animal names

Willway's goal of improving student writing using Adrienne Gear's Powerful writing structures book also made gains this year. We are seeing a slow and steady increase of students ability to express their learning through writing as well as engage in written projects. Many teachers participated in webinars that Adrienne Gear offers in writing and reading. Using a consistent framework and program has allowed for common language to be used across grades and classrooms. This goal will continue forward but a focus on math will also be introduced next year.

What's on this page