Meeting the Needs of Students at West Springs School
At West Springs School, learning needs of students are addressed through a comprehensive School Learning Team (SLT) approach. Every teacher meets with the SLT in September to review students’ transitions and initial achievement levels. Throughout the year, teachers meet to review student progress, instructional strategies, and supports needed to ensure student success. In some cases, the school SLT accesses supports of specialists outside of the school.
Occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech language therapy are some of the specialists school can access for student supports.
Each elementary school in the Calgary Board of Education has an assigned Occupational Therapist, Physiotherapist, and Speech-Language Pathologist. Throughout the year, these professionals will be visiting classrooms at West Springs School. These visits may include observing students’ work, interacting with students in large or small groups and working with teachers to support all students.
In general, the roles of each specialist include:
- Occupational Therapist (OT) - fine motor skills, organizational skills, focus and attention.
- Physiotherapist (PT) - gross motor skills, motor planning, strength and endurance.
- Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP)- support language development in the classroom, support articulation (speech sound) development.
Homework
Parental interest in a child's schoolwork is essential to their child’s learning and success. Parents are encouraged to discuss the daily activities of their child(ren) while at school and to review together any assignments that are brought home. Homework assignments in Kindergarten, Grades 1 and 2 tend to be informal in nature, such as daily reading, practicing basic facts or the completion of unfinished class work. In Grades 3 and 4, assignments may be given at the discretion of the teacher; students are expected to complete unfinished work at home.
Parents are encouraged to provide a regular, quiet environment on a daily basis to support home/school routines and work habits. Suggestions include practice in reading (fluency or areas of interest), writing/journaling, sketching, practice of specific skills (computational fluency/practice, letter formation, cursive handwriting, keyboarding), board games enjoyed by the family (chess, Monopoly, Brain Quest) or inquiry in an area of interest or passion (sciences, mathematics, engineering, architecture, medicine, biology, literature, music, the arts). Reading together and discussing current events on a daily basis is recommended.
Homework times will vary depending on the child, the time of year, and the specific activity being completed. As a general guideline, CBE recommends 10 to 15 minutes for students in the early grades increasing to 30 minutes for students in the older grades.
An Online Reference Centre and integrated learning tasks are available at Learn Alberta: http://www.learnalberta.ca/
If you are accessing this site from a CBE school (CBE network), the OR will automatically log you in using the CBE username and password. If you are accessing this site from home (outside the CBE network), then you will be asked to enter a username & password to see the resources. Username: LA06 Password: 4105
Electronic book resources are available on the LearnAlberta site. If you search Bookflix or Trueflix in the key word section, you will find reading material appropriate for students. Bookflix provides both fiction and non-fiction reading and video for our youngest students and Trueflix provides an interactive selection of non-fiction videos/books organized by categories of interest.
