Dec 2 - Ward 18 Forum

On Wednesday, Chris Spence, the TDSB's Director of Education, will speak at the Ward 18 Meeting at Birchmount C.I. at 7pm. This is a rare opportunity to learn about the TDSB's vision for our children's education. Please RSVP if you plan to attend. (Details in the poster below.)

Swimming lessons at SATEC / WA Porter

As part of the effort to keep the SATEC pool open, the aquatics team at West Scarborough Neighbourhood Community Centre will now be offering Red Cross-based swimming lessons at SATEC (WA Porter) in addition to their existing programs at WSNCC. Here's the winter program. Contact aquatics coordinator Simon Easton for more information.

EQAO: What can parents do to help?

As parents, we all know that we have a huge role to play in supporting our children’s learning. But what specifically can we do? Here’s some advice from Mr. Frenette:

• Encourage and support our children as they’re doing their homework
• Set aside focused time for reading. Have fun with it.
• Show children the value of reading for a purpose: to explore an interest, to find out information.
• Expose your children to household math: clocks, recipes, finances, counting, etc.
• Advocate for your children. Become engaged.
• Communicate with their teachers. Use the school agenda, read the classroom blog if there is one, send the teacher a note or ask for an appointment. Open communication and trust are key to success.
• Teach your children the concept of time and the importance of punctuality.
• Demonstrate your interest in school. Have a meaningful dialogue about what they’re learning.
• Use weekends and breaks to expose your children to new places, ideas and experiences.

And finally, says Mr. Frenette, parents, teachers and administrators alike must keep the big picture in mind. What is our vision for these children? It's that they'll become responsible, respectful, productive and happy adults.

I, for one, continue to be confident that Clairlea is setting our children’s feet firmly on that path.

EQAO: Clairlea's action plan

As I reported in yesterday's post on Clairlea's EQAO results, Mr. Frenette has every confidence in Clairlea students’ ability to succeed. The school is putting several programs into place to give students the resources and support they need.

As Ms. Persaud told the school in a letter when the results came out, "Student results on EQAO assessments are an important source of information about student strengths and areas needing improvement. As a school community, we use them along with other information to guide our own school improvement initiatives and instructional programs. The result of this work benefits not only your child but all students in the school. The testing results are also used by our school board and the Ministry of Education to direct attention and support where they are needed."

What that means is that Clairlea has a school improvement plan. It is too complicated and multi-faceted for me to explain here, but certain programs have already been put in place and there's more to come. Mr. Frenette reports on the plan at School Council meetings and everyone is welcome to attend (whether or not you are a voting member of Council) to learn more and to pose your questions.

Mr. Frenette also shared his views on what parents can do to support our children in the learning process. More on that in tomorrow's post.

EQAO: How did Clairlea do?

This is the second of four posts on the EQAO program. In this post, we look at Clairlea's results from 2008-09.

From the graph below, you can see that in grade 6, Clairlea is pretty close to average by most measures. You can find more detailed numbers in the school’s report – see page 10 and 11 for grade 6.

Grade 3 paints a bit of a different picture. It’s important to view these results in context, and here’s what Mr. Frenette told me.

Since only the English stream does the reading and writing tests, the total number of participants is quite low – just 23 students in grade 3 reading and writing. That means that a small number of children having difficulty can greatly affect the numbers. As you can see, Clairlea’s grade 3 mathematics score (with 53 students participating) is closer to the provincial average, though still below it.

While the school takes the results seriously and is acting on them, Mr. Frenette cautions against becoming overly concerned. He emphasizes that the EQAO test is merely a snapshot, taken at a single point in time, and that it is one of many ways of measuring student achievement at Clairlea.

In addition to the low participant numbers, Mr. Frenette acknowledges that there were certain factors last year and the previous year that may have resulted in lower scores in 2008-09. In my next post, I’ll tell you about the school’s action plan to ensure that all students at Clairlea are able to learn successfully.

“I have all the confidence in the world in our students,” Mr. Frenette concludes. “They are in good hands. Our job is to give them hope, and the resources they need to succeed.”

In the next post: Clairlea's action plan.

EQAO: The basics

As you probably already know, our school's full EQAO results are available online, but this 31-page document is difficult to interpret and hard to put into context. Clairlea vice-principal Mr. Frenette recently spent some time with me explaining Clairlea's results and its action plan.

I'll summarize that conversation over the next couple of posts. But first, some basics.

What is EQAO?

EQAO stands for Education Quality and Accountability Office. It is the province of Ontario's standardized testing program for grade 3 and grade 6. It offers a snapshot of students' abilities in reading, writing and mathematics. The test is mandatory, although exemptions are sometimes given.

Is there a different test for French immersion students?

Both French immersion and English students take the test. However, grade 3 French immersion students only take the math test, and that test is given in French. In grade 6, French immersion students do all three tests in English, just like the English stream.

See EQAO's Parent’s Guide for more information on how and when the tests are administered.

How are the tests scored?

Based on their answers, each student is assigned a level in reading, writing and math. Here’s what the levels mean:

· Level 1: Falls much below the provincial standard. (The student has demonstrated some of the required knowledge and skills in limited ways.)

· Level 2: Approaches the provincial standard. (The student has demonstrated some of the required knowledge and skills.)

· Level 3: At the provincial standard. (The student has demonstrated most of the required knowledge and skills.)

· Level 4: Surpasses the provincial standard. (The student has demonstrated the required knowledge and skills.)

In my next post: how did Clairlea do?

Parent-Teacher Interview Tips

Our School Council chair and vice-chair recently attended a conference given by People for Education. The conference organizers shared a series of useful tip sheets, which we'll reprint here from time to time. As Clairlea's parent-teacher interviews are coming up soon, we thought we'd start with this one.

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