Lessons Learned - Shared by the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat
The Wellington Catholic District School Board is dedicated to equity of outcomes for all of the children entrusted to our care. The WCDSB Catholic School Effectiveness Framework will establish meaningful opportunities for professional learning to close the gap in achievement for children. We are committed to closing the gap in achievement for all children with a particular focus on English Language Learners, Literacy for Boys and Special Education.
Strategies that Close the Gap and Enable us to "Go Deeper"
High expectations for all students
Engaging all students in higher order thinking skills
Differentiated instruction
Teachers sharing responsibility for the success of all students
Early interventions for struggling students
Opportunities for purposeful student talk and oral language development
Multiple opportunities for students to revise their work, with explicit instruction in order to assist students in moving to the next level
Use assistive technology (not just for EQAO but as an integral tool every day)
Help students make links between prior and new knowledge
Use contexts that students are familiar with and build upon current knowledge
Refer students to word walls or math strategy wall to reinforce previous learning
Use visual or graphic organizers
Model or use think-alouds to help students reason through a process
Instruction must be of sufficient duration and intensity
Provide guided practice
Scaffold instruction
Provide tips, cues and explicit and timely feedback
Two years of field observations show that effective schools...
Reinforce continuously the message that all students can achieve and that all teachers can teach to a high level
As a staff, collaboratively develop school improvement plans that have a narrow and precise focus and share responsibility for regularly monitoring progress in achieving goals
Engage in conversations about school improvement through regular visits from the Superintendent of Schools
Use data to inform school improvement planning (EQAO, diagnostic assessments, report card data, common assessments, attendance data, graduation rates, credit completion, suspension data)
Display samples of work in reading and writing in all subjects on the walls in the classrooms and in the hall-ways
Implement specific instructional strategies to address gaps for students who have historically performed be-low the provincial standard
Regularize job-embedded time for teachers to work together planning lessons, always respective of collective agreements
Teachers are familiar and incorporate into their instruction the types of tasks expected of students on provincial assessments
Principal makes regular and frequent visits to classrooms to monitor progress in achieving the school's priorities
Implement a fully balanced literacy program with uninterrupted blocks of time which reflect the regular practice of read-aloud, shared reading, modeled writing, shared/interactive writing, guided reading/writing and independent reading/writing
Focus on non-fiction writing for multiple purposes across the curriculum
Give students have multiple opportunities for purposeful talk
Give students have multiple opportunities to revise their work in order to move to the next level
Design requirements for higher order thinking into every class every day
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