Waapihtiiwewan School

Waapihtiiwewan School’s improvement journey focused on developing and implementing the Response to Intervention framework across all classes, with emphasis on student support, well-being and engagement. As a collaborative pedagogical team, we use the GVC to offer meaningful and relevant core curriculum instructions. The Waapihtiiwewan staff are dedicated to student achievement and met on a weekly basis to discuss implementation of the RTI framework, student work and data from benchmark achievement assessments. Further, we actively engaged students in developing school policy, and developed specialized Focus Groups to monitor school improvement plans pertaining to Cree and English Literacy, Numeracy, Safe Schools, and Attendance. The academic and socio-emotional well-being of our students drives our work and brings us all together with a common purpose.

Waapihtiiwewan School Vision

Our goal is to provide and foster a community dedicated to student success. As teachers and staff, we will:

• Work to foster a safe and inclusive learning environment in which students are excited to be involved
• Develop and improve literacy and numeracy in order to give our students the tools

Local School Improvement Plan

The staff at Waapihtiiwewan continuously strive to build capacity from within in order to best meet the needs of our student population. In an effort to deepen our understanding of the Local School Improvement Program (LSIP), we formed specialized Focus Groups for accountability purposes, and to take full ownership of our improvement efforts. As a result of this initiative, we revised our school code of conduct, implemented a school-wide breakfast program, and placed emphasis on student data analysis and action planning. Furthermore, the Response to Intervention (RTI) framework allowed our team to share leadership as we developed Waapihtiiwewan’s core instruction delivery, analyzed student exemplars, and created goals based on our knowledge of the students and their progress. To foster student voices in our school community, we sought the assistance of our youth in developing our code of conduct. As a unified staff, we collaborated with the student body and together developed a code of conduct for both students and teachers.

Waapihtiiwewan School’s LSIP is a living document that every member of staff has had a hand in creating. This year, we began working with the Response to Intervention framework, implemented an updated attendance entry system, revised the school code of conduct, implemented a technology based video-game design course, and developed student leadership through the creation of student-run canteens in the elementary and secondary sectors. While we did not meet our projected literacy and numeracy goals for this year’s LSIP, we have deepened our understanding of core instruction and our students’ unique needs. We are using this information to move forward in an effort to bring relevant, dynamic, academically stimulating, equitable and inclusive content and programming to our students.

Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum

The GVC will be entering its fifth year of implementation and Waapihtiiwewan is proud that it is implemented across all grades. Our team has taken the next steps in furthering our understanding of the GVC, and has identified the most crucial core content for delivery to our students. Our classes have posted learning objectives, student exemplars, and success criteria while we move toward creating a more independently driven learning environment for our youth. We look forward to continuing to adapt the GVC in conjunction with RTI to better meet the needs of our students.

Professional Learning Communities

PLCs evolved this year at Waapihtiiwewan School. With RTI now firmly part of our school structure, our PLCs have grown with this framework as the centerpiece. On a weekly basis, our team met to discuss RTI SMART sequences, examine student exemplars, analyze student achievement scores, and discuss evidence and research-based strategies that can be put into practice in our classrooms. Additionally, our teacher teams collaborated on building common assessments that are vertically aligned from Grade 1 through to Secondary III. Specialist teachers continued their PLC work through regular focus group meetings to ensure we hold ourselves accountable to the LSIP and, to our students.

Student Attendance

With the financial help of Québec en Forme, we had an Attendance Incentive Program this year. This program was used to increase student attendance and reduce student lateness. We had a celebratory assembly in June to recognize students who achieved 80% or above for the year. A total of 44 students received awards at this event, including a student who had an attendance rate of 100%!

Safe School Policy

The Justice League (Anti-Bullying Committee) met on a regular basis and achieved many goals, including a student-completed and committee-analyzed bullying survey, week-long organized activities for Kindness Week, supplemental exercise time in the gym for behavioural students, both in the morning and afternoon, and finally a list of pro-social consequences to be imposed rather than sending students home on suspensions.

Parental Involvement

Waapihtiiwewan School holds three Parent-Teacher Nights each year, and we are proud to say we experienced a record turnout this year. A committee was formed with this specific purpose, and through various efforts, had great success!

In addition, parents were invited to attend and take part in several school activities throughout the school year, including our cultural day trip to the blueberry farm, school celebratory assemblies, the breakfast program, Halloween and Christmas activities, graduations and our annual ski trip.