Achievement and SIP

Measures of Student Achievement and Success

John Young follows the guidelines set out in the OCDSB Policy and Procedures for Student Assessment, available on the Board’s website.

John Young celebrates all levels of achievement that represent the best efforts of our students. ‘Assessment as learning’ provides students with an opportunity to reflect on their learning. ‘Assessment for learning’ promotes learning and guides the teacher’s instruction. ‘Assessment of learning’ takes place when judgments are made about student achievement of their knowledge and/or skills.

The teachers use a variety of assessment techniques, including daily assignments, rubrics, oral tests, classroom tests, theme projects, standardized achievement and ability tests, criterion-referenced tests, performance tests, rating scales, self-evaluation, checklists, shared evaluation, individual and group presentations, contracts, questionnaires, teacher-student interviews, participation charts, portfolios, and student-led conferences.

The grade 3 and grade 6 students participate in EQAO provincial testing.

School Improvement Plans and Initiatives

The School Improvement Plans and Initiatives are a result of analyzing our EQAO results, daily observations of student performance, report card marks, and a variety of demographic factors. The School Improvement Team has developed a plan that reflects careful thought and consideration of input from staff, students, and parents. Our focus is to maximize the quality of education for all learners at John Young. Our primary foci in our classrooms are critical thinking across all subjects, literacy, numeracy and character development.

Numeracy

The focus of our school improvement plan pertains to numeracy. This year, the focus of our professional development will be on numeracy, embedding critical thinking and the “Big Five” strategies (Task, Feedback, Criteria, Differentiation and Moderation). Specifically, our students will reflect on and:

  • focus on creative, innovative and critical thinking and problem solving
  • engage in accountable and meaningful communication and dialogue
  • come with higher levels of self-efficacy (risk-taking, confidence and open-mindedness
  • view themselves as critical mathematical thinkers

Staff implement a balanced numeracy program as outlined in “The Early Math Strategy”, a document from the Ministry, and will continue to focus on numeracy in our classrooms. Regular problem solving challenges, 3-part Math problem solving strategies and group problem solving (Bansho) are routine in the classrooms.

Other components of our plan:

  • staff professional development in the area of critical thinking, reading comprehension and the writing process
  • focus on enhancing reading materials for Read-Alouds and Borrow-a-book programs
  • staff professional development to further enhance our Special Education delivery

School Climate

Environmental awareness and a focus on garbage reduction (if it comes in your lunch box, it goes home in your lunch box), energy conservation (Lights Out, Computers Off), and the litter-less lunch program. Also involved in this endeavour is our custodian who helps students to take ownership of the school’s recycling program and gather statistics on classroom energy use.
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