Pennfield Elementary School

School Information
School Name: Pennfield Elementary School
District Name: School District 10 New Brunswick  
School Address: 18 School House Lane, Pennfield, N.B.
School Phone: 506.755.4012
School Fax: 506.755.4013
Principal: Carol Trainor
Principal E-Mail: traincar@nbed.nb.ca
Web Address: pes.nbed.nb.ca

Demographics
Number of Students: 63
Number eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch: N/A
Percent of Limited English Proficient: .03%

Racial/Ethnic Percentages

• White: 96%
• Black:
• Hispanic: .03%
• Asian/Pacific Island:
• Other:

 

Present Student Achievement Data in at least three points to demonstrate trends

Grade: 2	Math	Reading	Writing
Year 2010	N/A	79%	86%
Year 2009	N/A	100%	66.6%
Year 2008	N/A	91.7%	100%
Year 2007	N/A	72.7%	54.5%

Grade: 3	Math	Reading	Writing
Year 2010	71%	N/A	N/A
Year 2009	79.8%	N/A	N/A
Year 2008	70.1%	N/A	N/A
Year 2007	61.9%	N/A	N/A

Grade: 4	Math	Reading	Writing
Year 2010 (piloted)	69%	75%	75%
Year 2009	N/A	87.5%	87.5%
Year 2008	N/A	80.0%	80.0%
Year 2007	N/A	68.8%	43.8%

Please comment on any aspect of the data that you believe is particularly significant. 

The data for Grades 2 & 4 are from our Provincial Literacy Assessments. The data for our 2010 Grade 2 Provincial assessment shows a 21% decrease in Reading, however, the 2009 score was 100%, which was unusual success. The assessment for Writing shows an increase of 19.4% and therefore creating a balanced analysis with the scores having a difference of 1.6%. The date for our 2010 Grade 4 Provincial assessment shows a 12.5% decrease in both the Reading and Writing, which was predicted by the Team. Our prediction was due to the fact that 1/6 of the class were on a modified program (students participating in less then 50% of the Literacy curriculum) and wrote the assessment.

The data for Grade 3 is from our District Numeracy Assessment. The 2010 Grade 3 assessment showed an overall average of 71%, missing the smart goal by 4% percentage points however; Pennfield’s overall average was 9.3% above the District-wide score. An important variable for this assessment is the fact that our Grade 3 class size was only 6 students and of those two students are ESL students. Also, the Team anticipates the 2011 assessment will be affected by the departmental changes in the Grade 3 Numeracy curricula, which began this Sept. 2010.

The data for the Grade 4 Numeracy is a piloted District Assessment. Based on the Team’s smart goal of having, by the end of June 2010, 70% of students in Grade 4 meeting the district numeracy standards 100% fell short by 7.7% with a score of 62.6%. An important variable is the fact that 1/6 of the class were on a modified program (students participating in less than 50% of the Numeracy curriculum) who wrote the assessment. Also, the 62.6% was 5.6% above the District-wide score.

Please present additional information that indicates your efforts to build a professional learning community have had a positive impact on students and/or teachers.

The Provincial/District Literacy and Numeracy Assessment results present the positive impact on our students.

The Teaming opportunity for teachers has lead to analyzing the Provincial Literacy Curriculum ending with the creation of a rubric for writing from K-4 titled “Writing Skills Taught at each Grade – Essential Outcomes for K-4.” They also created the “Fiction Writing Rubric” for assessing this genre. Both documents have been up loaded on the district portal site under the link for Singleton Teachers.

The Team has partnered with other local schools using a common writing rubric for assessing writing for grades 1-4 and has been up loaded on the portal site under a link for Singleton Teachers.

The Team is now participating with other Charlotte County East-End District schools that, due to the size of the school population (Singleton Teachers-one teacher/grade level) have been given the opportunity to meet during a number of ½ days, through the year, to work on common grade level assessments. Each grade level has to have an agenda, minutes and an action play which is to be submitted to the East-End Administration Team to be uploaded onto the Singleton site for sharing of information and documentations.

Our provincial education dept has created the School Educational Review, which is an opportunity for the schools to demonstrate how they present a positive learning environment to their students, parents and community. The Team at Pennfield has participated in this evaluation since 2006-07 and below is a table identifying our results based on surveying Grade 4 students, all 65-70 families and the Team.

Year	Student	Parent	Teacher	Overall
2009-10	94.5%	87.5%	94.2%	92.06%
2008-09	85.6%	86.45%	93%	88.35%
2007-08	83.2%	98%	96.6%	92.6%
2006-07	80.4%	96%	78.4%	84.9%
Overall	85.9%	92.0%	90.6%	89.5%

 

Based on the above results the Pennfield Team identifies the areas that need improvement and include these smart goals in the School Improvement Plan, which is usually a 3 to 4 year plan. Areas that have been improved: student subject schedules placing literacy and numeracy into 90 minute blocks; enhancing the K-2 program through professional development; incorporating a school discipline policy that is student directed; a strong informative plan to assist with bullying in school and in the community; teaming for teachers scheduled on a weekly basis; outlining essential outcomes for literacy curriculum in all grade levels; a data monitoring system that helps to identify student needs; and a mentoring schedule for all teachers with other grade level teachers and/or district learning specialist.
Another component added to our positive learning environment is our new Student Code of Conduct which is part of our anti-bullying program which was based on student feedback. See below:

Pennfield Elementary School Student Code of Conduct
I will respect myself, others and the environment
I will follow school and bus rules to keep me safe.
I will be helpful to others.
I will tell an adult if I am bullied or see bullying.
I will stop, think and do what is right.

For the past 3 years I have held the position of principal of a small community school in rural New Brunswick with a student population of approximately 65 students. During this time, our teaching team began a journey with the school district called Professional Learning Communities (PLC). According to Richard and Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker and Thomas Many,  “PLCs are composed of collaborative teams whose members work interdependently to achieve common goals linked to the purpose of learning for all and are action and results oriented” (Learning by Doing, 2006).

After an excellent presentation by the District regarding PLCs we had a clear understanding of collaborative teaming and of being action and results oriented. We then discovered within the first years that we, the collaborative team, were becoming more in tune to the importance of data, which is a must if one is going to be results oriented. However, the data was becoming overwhelming to the team as they tried to become familiar with it.

At this point, I began looking into making the data more user friendly and came across an article by Tom Many titled “Three Rules Help Manage Assessment Data” on the website www.tepsa.org. The article identifies three rules that all principals should follow to ensure assessment data presented to teachers is used productively.

The first rule is to make the data “easily accessible.” To do this I decided to establish a “data board” in a location that is accessible to all teachers and administration. The board holds all the needed information regarding the success of students, including attendance records to district and provincial assessment results. The second rule is to make sure that the data is “purposefully arranged.” This was a little more time consuming because we, as a team, had to examine the data from the teachers' point of view and set up a system that presented it in a fashion easily understood by the teachers. The system, which organizes the data using graphic analysis, is broken down by individual student and individual class. Also included are the breakdowns identifying past results and present district and provincial assessments identifying student successes and failures based on possible variables (positive and negative) that would have an impact on the results.

The third rule is to ensure that the data presented is “publicly discussed.” Once the first and second rules were in place, this rule became easy to implement. The team has the opportunity to collaborate in which all data necessary is brought to the table for discussion. From these discussions comes the action to make necessary changes and improvements needed for student learning and success.

As we, and the District, continue on our PLC journey the new administration purchased a book for the school administrators titled “The Collaborative Teacher: Working Together as a Professional Learning Community”. This book led us to rethink about our school's data picture, which led me back to the data board. As I stared at the board I began to see a new picture evolving.  
The data board was set up in three segments, the first being the ready-access data. This was an accumulation of daily attendance, weekly behavior charts; weekly and monthly assessment results such as guided reading and writing exemplars. However something was missing. I noted that I could include the lateral/vertical collaborative team meeting reports and specific parental communications that related to a student's learning, even though they did not present a number system to the picture.

The second segment is the interim data. This data was an accumulation of chuck assessments, behavior modification evaluations, term report cards, Pre-Kindergarten testing and District Kindergarten Intervention reports.  After identifying missing information in the first segment, I concluded that there could possibly be something missing from this segment: our Pyramids of Intervention (academic and behavioral). Again, these in-school intervention charts do not have a specific number attribution, but are a cornerstone of the important needs of our students and, therefore, become necessary regarding needed changes to these charts that assist our students' learning.

The third segment is the year-end data, which consist of district and provincial assessments, Student Education plans and the Department of Education School Review. It has been clearly stated that for data to be of use it must be presented in a timely fashion. However, the provincial assessment and school review data are not. Therefore, the question that is continuously asked is this data relevant. We state that it is. Though the evidence presented from these provincial evaluations are based on students who have moved on, it opens up the doors for discussion regarding the variables that may have affected the results and whether these variables can be or need to be addressed to assist current students.

Once this process was complete I was able to address our teaching team with a concept that not only presented concretely our school's data picture but also gave it more meaning due to being more user friendly. When a collaborative team accesses this data they are able to reflect, discuss and make improvements for learning that can and will have a lasting impact on their students, which is a true PLC.

Based on the importance data has become came the development of the R I T E Analysis chart (Ready-access/Interim/Year-End Analysis chart). This chart provides the team with a picture that includes our data and instruments used to collect data that will assist in answering the following questions: What is the purpose of our assessments? Do we know what quality assessments look like? What do we need to do to ensure we are using quality assessment processes? And how do we involve students in the assessment process?
           

The R I T E Analysis Chart
Readily Accessible/Interim/End of Year

Readily Accessible	Interim	End-of-year
Attendance	Chuck Assessments	Provincial Assessments
Behavior Charting	Behavior Modification Evaluations	Provincial Assessments
Weekly/Monthly Evaluations	Term Report Cards	Student Education Plans
Guided Reading Evaluations	Writing Skills - Essential K-4 Outcomes	School Review
School/District/Pro Exemplars	Writing Rubrics
Lateral/Vertical Collaborative Teaming	Pre-Kindergarten Testings
Parental Comunication	Kindergarten Intervention
	Pyramid of Interventions - Academic/Behavior

by Carol Trainor

Bibliography
Dufour R., Dufour R. , Eaker R., & Many T. (2006) Learning by Doing A Handbook   for Professional Learning Communities at Work. Solution Tree, Bloomington, IN.

O'Neill J. & Conzemius A. (2006) The Power of SMART Goals. Solution Tree, Bloomington, IN.

Many T. “Three Rules Help Manage Assessment Data” TEPSA News, www.tepsa.org

Neill M. “How the Principles and Indicators for Student Assessment Systems Should Affect Practice” The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, www.fairtest.org

Stiggins R. & Chappuis J. “What a Difference a Word Makes” National Staff Development Council, www.nsdc.org

 

Please elaborate strategies you have found to be effective in the following areas:

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

Student Work Analysis – a permanent feature for the agenda at all team meetings involving weekly, monthly and yearly school/district/provincial assessments.
Individual Student Smart Goals for the first & second reporting periods.
The Student Portfolio Bin – a permanent bin for student work ready available for homeroom teachers and other teaching staff to present during Student Services and Team meetings.

2. Creating systems of intervention to provide students with additional time and support for learning.

Pennfield School’s Pyramids of Interventions for Behaviour and Academic. In the Behaviour Pyramid the inclusion of the VISA Card program – Value in Student Achievement which is a program based on 3 components academic, school/community (service to the school and/or community) and self positive growth (extra-curricular activities in and out of school). This program promotes the celebration of positive behavior in academics, service/citizenship and a positive self. Another aspect that is part of this pyramid is Attendance Letters which is a positive way to communicate to families the importance of keep up their child's attendance which will have a positive effect on the child's education.

In the Academic Pyramid the inclusion of Differentiated Instruction and Homework Club. These two components are a must when speaking about systems of interventions. Another aspect is Flexible Grouping which is possible due to our daily scheduling. Our daily schedule begins with 90 minutes of literacy then it is followed by 90 minutes of numeracy. This allows both our struggling and gifted students the opportunity to be placed in flexible groupings within their class and/or within other classroom setting.

In the Academic Pyramid of Interventions and due to departmental changes regarding Student Education Plans, the Team added to the interventions the Pennfield Elementary School In-class Best Practices to support student learning. These best practices are student-focused assessments; daily feedback/rubrics; peer evaluation; double time during testing; the installation of FM systems; and the incorporation of the Daily 5/Café.

3. Building the capacity of teachers to work as members of high performing collaborative teams who focus the efforts of their team on improved learning for students.

The Team (including the administration) has participated in 2 book studies: School Leadership that Works by R. J. Marzano, T. Waters and B. A NcNulty; The Evidence Based School by K. Hume; The Principal as a Staff Developer by R. P. Dufour edited by D. Sparks.

The Teaching Team came to an agreement regarding classroom management and assessment which involve the concepts presented in the Daily Five/The Café and these concepts work well when dealing with a small population.

The Administration Team with the Teaching Team has established an evidence board and all have access to this board which presents the evidence of student learning and success. The evidence on the board includes attendance records, district/provincial assessments, guided reading analysis, provincial school perception survey results, yearly smart goals, district/provincial assessment schedule and our provincial report of achievement for 3 years. This board is based on the motto that data is not to be feared by revered. Added to this data monitoring system is a classroom data sheet for each class which identifies where the student was in Sept continuing throughout the year. These classroom data sheets give a quick view of how each class is progressing along with how each individual student is progressing in all areas of their education.

Team Meetings must follow and review the stated norms; have an agenda which must be presented to all members before the meeting; minutes must be taken at all team meetings and must have action plans; 

List any Awards and Recognition Garnered by Your School

The Team has received the New Brunswick Teacher's Association School Based Learning Team Grant 2006-07 and 2009 Visual Arts and Literacy; received the Schools Communities in Action – Minister's Award Level 5 grant 2007-09 for our Physical Education program; received the S'cool Life Fund grant for enrichment programs Scrabble and Chess Clubs; award two Innovation Grants from the Department of Education 2007 and 2008 for upgrading classroom technology (FM systems and Smart Boards) and literacy; received the Gold Metal from our partners in recycling South West Solid Waste Commission for 2007 and 2009

The Team this year (2010) have received the N B Retired Teacher’s grant for the Literacy and Technology initiative; received the School Wellness grant to support our Physical Education program; received over $4000 in donations from local business, organizations and community members to purchase new playground equipment to enhance the concept of PLAY; received the Gold Metal from our partners in recycling South West Solid Waste Commission for 2010