The entire school is such a beautiful, fresh space. The flow from area to area makes sense and keeps the age groups in their own sections. There are so many windows that allow the beautiful natural light to pour in. The only negative of this, with the nature of the area and the reality of this modern day, lockdowns can happen. One EA shared she wishes they didn’t have as many windows or just higher windows to help with privacy and safety in a lockdown situation. While I love the light, I do see her point. And not even just the area, this can happen anywhere and anytime.
The outside of the building is colourful and clean. The admin assistant is right beside the front door and not behind a door. She’s open concept and ready to welcome whenever comes in. In the main corridor, there is an adorable book vending machine. I meant to ask if you needed to use real money to work it or if there was another way. The library/media centre is also attached to the corridor and is such an open concept and inviting space.
On the walls in the hallways and in the classrooms, there is so much positivity to read and internalize. The classroom I was in today was so organized and welcoming. It was the ⅚ split. The teacher had the days schedule written on the board. This was awesome for the kids to know what was coming next and if they had questions about what they were supposed to be doing it was right on the board for them to be independent.
The classroom had a wonderful area at the back where they had a puzzle set up and shelves full of books. It was colourful and cozy. The rest of the room was in two U shapes. I found the desk layout to be great to allow group work and community building as well as a nice path for the teacher to walk around the check on everyone. Most of the students faced the teacher directly. This teacher was strong in her instructions and clear on her tasks. This created a great authoritative model for the students to follow. She also had a great sense of humour and you could tell the students loved it.
For a portion of the afternoon, a different teacher came into the classroom and took the students to Cultural Arts. You could sense her positive energy as soon as she came in the room and the students showed genuine excitement for her as well. We took a walk to the Arts room all together. Around the room was so much creativity from guitars on the shelf, a big colouring area, pictures on the wall, games in the buckets, Cree language translations on the walls, and quotes of positivity. I was just as excited as the kids. We all sat in a circle and the teacher led a quiet and quick stretch. I believe this set the tone of the next activity very well and it calmed everyone down. We started with a listening circle and the students shared the rules of the circle with me and my classmate. They were very respectful of these rules and we’re eager to share, that “if you don’t have the rock, you don’t get to talk”. So we all listened, some students shared just a word, or something silly, their plans for the night, or something they are proud of. After that, it was explore time and the students could choose what activity they wanted to participate in. I enjoyed the freedom they got to have and play together. This gave them a brain break from active learning and instead learning how to work together in games or focus on the art of colouring or building. The teacher had to gently remind them to keep the tone to an inside voice sometimes but they were very responsive to her and listened right away.
The entire day was filled with positivity and encouragement from words on the walls or word from the teachers. The teacher would ask questions and challenge the students to answer it first. She let them work through the question, reflect on what they learned, and elaborated on their ideas. When we first got there, one of the students was throwing around some things and seemed to be upset. He was asked to leave and the teacher took him out do the classroom. The EA did a wonderful job of bringing order back to the classroom and reminding them to try and not give him attention as that won’t help the situation when it happens.