Our May professional development day was our final opportunity to gather as a staff and look back at our year-long journey of thinking about how we can best support our students in being successful in their Social - Emotional Learning. This was also an opportunity to celebrate our journey and acknowledge that we are ready to begin using common language in our community, beginning in September, as guided by our school framework.

We spent some time becoming even more familiar with the Personal and Social Core Competencies and how the language could be used to help support our students in learning about how they best Care for Self, Care for Others and Care for Place. We also participated in one final visioning activity where staff brainstormed what it would look like if our students were showing care for self, others, and place in the many different spaces and environments that they are part of when they are here in the school. For example, staff answered such questions as:

What would it look like if our learners were caring for others on the playground? or

What would it look like if our learners are caring for themselves when online or using technology?

The attached PDF will give you a glimpse into the ideas shared by staff. The information collated gives us an idea of what we ideally we would like for our students to be able to achieve through the incorporation of our common language but it also gives us some perspective as to where we may want to direct our focus moving forward and where we may want to start.

Upon our return in September, our intention is to begin going deeper into engaging our students in learning more about our common language and why this is of value to everyone in our community. We plan to do this through assemblies, family teams activities, buddy activities, school wide recognition programs, etc. where we are learning together.

We're excited for begin this next stage of our journey and where it will lead for our students.