Beddington continues to show student growth in academics and
makes gains around safe and caring schools, citizenship and school improvement.
In the fall of each school year schools receives a school
report from the province, which provides feedback on provincial marks (Grade
6)_and provides teacher student and parent responses from grade 4 students who
are surveyed regarding safe schools, student learning, work preparation, parent
involvement, citizenship, and school improvement. These charts can be found on
the school webpage and are titled School Learning Achievement, and the
Accountability Pillar Overall Summary.
http://school.cbe.ab.ca/School/Repository/SBAttachments/02b409d4-04b1-4ecd-96c2-38be25d17ebb_School-Results-Report-2018-19.pdf
Similar to report cards, schools are rated by indicators.
The charts are color coded with yellow considered to be in the intermediate
range, green in the high range and blue results considered to be in the
excellent range. I can proudly say that Beddington has achieved results that
are exceptional. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that Beddington Heights
has received a ranking of excellent in continuous school improvement.
While results are exciting, we do have one area that we
continue to work on. We received lower than average results in the area of parent
involvement. As we work to rectify our community’s perception, I will be
scheduling a coffee with the principal meeting early in 2020 to provide parents
an opportunity to provide feedback regarding how we can improve this area on
our provincial survey. I have attached a link to a survey monkey to give you
the opportunity to respond to how you would like to see parent involvement
highlighted at our school.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WQLXDK2
Please take a moment to send me your suggestions. We will
close the survey December 20, 2019.
- As we move forward providing parents the opportunity to be
involved the school, I would like to share the following information with you:
- Parent council meets the second Tuesday of the
month at 6:30 in the learning commons of the school. All parents are welcome to
join us at that time. There will be no parent council meeting in January but
there is a meeting scheduled for February 4, 2020.
- Parents are invited to attend our Pillars of
Care assembly held at the end of each calendar month. We have a high number of
parents who continue to attend these assemblies. Parents continue to continue
to support our student celebrations of learning, particularly if their child is
receiving a ribbon. Even if your child is not receiving a ribbon, all parents
are invited to attend.
- The school calendar year is organized to invite
parents into the school. Parent council works with us to provide a number of
family functions. These include the family dances, breakfasts, and parent
evenings. The school also provides 2 concerts for families in winter and
spring. There is also a math evening in the last half of the year to celebrate
and share student learning. The grade 6 farewell, our year end farewell
assembly for staff and students and our sports day are all events families are
invited to.
- Student involved Conferences are scheduled in
November and May each year to discuss student learning plans. These precede
delivery of report cards the following month and are designed and scheduled to
share individual student achievement. If parent wish to have additional
opportunity to discuss their child’s learning, all teachers are open to parent
initiated conferences and the office staff will gladly schedule an appointment
for you.
- Fun-lunches for students are organized by parent
volunteers monthly. Parents are in the school during that time and are involved
in the distribution of lunches that families purchase. Amanda Muskego (a parent
at the school and our fun lunch co-ordinator} is always looking for volunteers.
- Parents are invited to apply for volunteer
clearance. The process takes anywhere from a couple of weeks up to six weeks to
process. Information is on our school website.
We have had a higher number of parent volunteer requests
returned to the school this year. These were included in the packages you
received at the beginning of the school year. Brooklyn Shill, a parent at the
school, and our parent volunteer coordinator, has informed me that we have 124 volunteers who have
signed up. We had 178 forms returned which allowed us to communicate
directly with the parents (even if they didn’t sign up to volunteer). We also have
132 followers for our Facebook page.
We have
recently become aware that “no comment”, or “I don’t know” as parent responses
are counted as negatives on provincial parent response surveys. If you are not
dissatisfied with any area of the areas listed on the provincial survey, we ask
that you consider the positive end of the scale, rather than the school receiving
an unintended response from your reply.
Please take
a minute to answer our three question survey. I am looking forward to hearing
your ideas.
Brian
Hebert
Principal, Beddington
Heights
