2013-14 Community Report for Charles P Allen High School Provincial Assessments

2013-14 Community Report for Charles P Allen High School
Provincial Assessments
In the 2013-2014 school year, Nova Scotia Examinations (NSE’s) for grade 10 English, Mathematics,
and Mathematics at Work were administered to all students enrolled in these courses. As this was
the first year for the administration of these exams, the Department of Education and Early Childhood
Development considered this to be a development year and therefore no provincial, board, and
school results were released. The baseline results for NSE’s will be available in the 2014-2015 school
year.
This was a year of impactful change for the teaching and learning at Charles P Allen High School.
Transitioning our student body and staff into a new state of the art facility was a tremendous
opportunity, which required the right focus and goals to optimize achievement and teaching
potential. Our Continuous School Improvement Plan, centered on critical thinking, offered our
students and staff consistent yet adaptable goals to help us implement the increased technology and
exciting new learning environments.
Our literacy goal is: Students will develop their critical thinking skills.
The strategies that were implemented this year were:
1. With common understanding developed through PLC collaboration, teachers will explicitly
teach and regularly embed the process of critical thinking as it relates to their subject area.
2. Teacher will provide opportunities for students to self-assess their critical thinking skills. We
will use Exit Passes on tests / assignments to get student feedback about their developing
critical thinking skills.
3. Make use of the school’s new technology to enhance the explicit teaching of critical thinking.
Our mathematics goal is: Students will develop their mathematical critical thinking skills with a
focus on improving achievement on level three questions.
The strategies that were implemented this year were:
1. With a common understanding developed through PLC collaboration, teachers will explicitly teach
and regularly embed the process of critical thinking as it relates to solving level three questions.
(Example strategies: model/think aloud/annotations)
2. Each math teacher will include the math goal and a description of level 2 and 3 questions on the
course outline.
The success of the strategies depended on key elements which were: Professional Learning
Communities, Technology Integration, Professional Development, and Student Engagement. All of our
departments found success with these elements.
The Social Studies department constantly exposed students to critical thought. The use of historical,
geographical, sociological, economical and legal thought provoked students to think about their
inherent assumptions on a topic and challenge these assumptions through written and verbal
presentation of knowledge. Students were consistently exposed to the different ways of thinking and
processing thought. From knowledge to creativity, the ideal mix of courses in the Social Studies
department is ideally suited to meet the goals of the Continuous School Improvement plan. Some
Critical Thinking Milestones for this Department were:
 Derek Gillis of The Genuine Progress Index presenting on sustainable living and measuring our
true economic potential in Atlantic Canada presentation to the Global Geography 12 class
 History IB World War I simulation. Given the treaties that were in place, are students able to
change the course of history and stop World War I from happening?
 Sociology 12: How would you socialize an Extra-terrestrial?
 The Global History North South housing simulation exposed students to the divide between
developed and least developed nations.
This year, over 250 CPA students participated in and/or led service learning projects that connected
their personal interests with a project that benefits the community. Students worked together to
learn about community issues and designed projects that matched their skills with an authentic
need. These projects took place in classroom, meeting curricular outcomes and as extra-curricular
projects. A group of student leaders also applied for a grant from the Cobequid Community Health
Board and received $3079 to help with the facilitation of projects over the next year.
Grade 11 O2/Co-op students from Charles P Allen participated in a Scaffolding Awareness work shop
this spring at CMTC, Carpentry Millwright Trades College in Lower Sackville. The students experienced
a hands on, practical day of scaffolding skills and safety procedures. Students also worked with an
instruction to apply their knowledge of rigging. Other students worked on building a shed as part of
their service learning project. The finished shed will be sold and all the profits will be donated to
Phoenix House.
Leadership 12 students completed service learning projects as part of their outcomes around socially
responsible leadership. They had to think critically about and reflect on meaningful engagement, and
develop a project/initiative that met community needs. The students held a successful book drive and
donated the books to Ronald MacDonald House at the IWK. Some students produced a live broadcast
for the African Heritage Month Assembly. Students were challenged to use logical thinking skills in
setting up technical equipment, then are required to make use of strong verbal communication, and
analytical skills.
Our new school has afforded students supported by the learning centre with wonderful
opportunities. This year students have taken over the grocery shopping for and the preparation of
the breakfast program in collaboration with our leadership classes. The students provided a print
shop for teachers, and worked with student council to prepare for various events. We have a
recycling team, a gardening team and a creating in the arts class that assisted with the prop design for
the Footloose production. Our students have been educating their peers and staff alike about all of
their abilities. The community has played a huge part in our transition program as we had 11
students in work placements in the community this year. Students benefited from working with
employers and other employees, leaving fabulous impressions at each work place.
We have a student who will be starting in paid employment for the summer and another student
attending the ACEE program in September 2014! These are the connections and opportunities for
students we hope to continue to develop and offer for years to come.
Our teachers were also engaged in the learning. Teachers participated in hands on workshops
provided on our in-service days that emulated how to provide a high order thinking experience in the
classroom. In one session, teachers learned about silk, silk production, application and technique for
painting silk and then co-created a large piece based on our school and the idea of the intersecting
paths of students and teachers. The session explored the metaphorical theme of ‘leaving a mark’.
Our Math Department engaged in professional learning in the following ways throughout the year
and demonstrated leadership at CP Allen, within our School Board, Provincially and even
internationally. Some highlighted areas of professional learning were:
 Three of our Math teachers attended a tech conference in Florida
 Two our our Math teachers attended the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Annual
Meeting in New Orleans
 Three are enrolled in a master’s programs (curriculum and Technology) at MSVU
 Shawn Young has been accepted to be an marker for the IB Standard Level Exams
 Our Math Department Head Chaired the NCTM Affiliate Services Committee and is currently
on the NCTM Boston 2015 Program Planning Committee
 The department hosted the NSTU October provincial math conference at CPA.
 Our Math Department Head is a member of the PreIB 10 Curriculum review committee (DOE)
 All members of the department took part in the PD offered by HRSB on the implementation
of the new math 10 and math 11 Curriculum
The Math Department also embraced new technologies and exemplified exciting changes in
instructional and assessment practices through:
 The use of Mimio technology by all teachers in the department has changed the way we
deliver the curriculum.
 Supporting more ”take-home” collaborative types of assessments allowing students time to
explore higher thinking (level three) problems.
 The use of Mimio vote assessments which gave instant feedback to both the students and
teachers to inform instruction and understanding.
 Supporting student self-assessments which involved having students reflect on what they
know and what they need to learn.
Other new strategies explored this year also included: visible thinking; use of smaller white boards for
student collaboration when problem solving; students teaching students in the classroom, “show me
what you know” on hand-held white boards.
The English Language Arts Department successfully integrated technology into the ELA 12 and ELA 11
learning studios. The first goal was to move students from concrete illustration to conceptualization
of the text(s) they read. The purpose was to illustrate to students how to conceptualize the text
itself. With emphasis on annotation of literary features such as characterization, setting, conflict,
tone, and mood, students selected various media products and connected them to a key passage.
The second goal was to have students explore the dynamism and purpose of a given image. Students
determined the tone of the image through annotation. After this annotation students used the
annotations to create a piece of their own, which shared the same tone as the image they chose. The
piece that the student created was then annotated by a partner to determine the success of the piece
Our Science Department Teachers are embedding more technology into their daily practice. This
includes the use of simulations, webquests and research databases. Most science classes are using
the probe-ware, including sparkvue on the iPads, on a regular basis. The use of this probe-ware helps
to expose students to authentic data sets. Direct instruction, when coupled with this exposure, helps
to teach students how to construct understanding from real-world data and to think critically about
the data collected and their data collection strategies.
Professional Learning Communities were crucial for every Department by producing:
 Common assessments for teachers to ensure consistent student opportunities
 Common activities for students to ensure consistent student opportunities
 Supporting new staff through collaboration
 Student self-assessments were developed
 Common Professional Growth Goal were developed for entire departments
The ability for our teachers to consistently collaborate with each other has raised the quality of our
lesson planning, strengthened the foundations of good assessment practices and allowed us to
support our Continuous School Improvement Plan. Technology integration and critical thinking have
complimented each other this year as they both offer opportunities for the other. Our school has
more learning to be done but we have stepped into our future with confidence and with an
understanding we thrive with community support and collaboration.