Sask. Rivers Schools get ready to start a new year off right

Carlton Comprehensive High School students are about to get technical.

This year, one tablet will be handed out to every grade nine student for use during class and at home.

This is something Bratvold said will help students, “do projects and communicate with teachers.”

“That’s an exciting initiative,” he continued, bringing up the positive reaction from both students and staff.

He also commended the “support behind the scenes”, saying the new installments would not be possible without IT staff and technicians preparing the tablets and network for use.

Up and coming programs

With many first-time teachers joining the roster this school year, Bratvold said they will be sure to provide support and guidance along the way.

Meetings will be held throughout the year for first and second year teachers. Superintendent Rob Clark will coordinate and lead the program, as he’s done in the past.

“It’s always good to get some new ideas and energy into the system,” said Bratvold. “It’s good to have that balance between staff who have been doing great things for long periods of time and new staff who are bringing some new ideas and things like that.”

Bratvold said the gatherings will include orientation and general support. Teachers who have recently changed positions can also attend.

Last year, the program received plenty of positive feedback, according to Bratvold.

“They really appreciate the opportunity to be together but also the opportunity to learn and see what the strengths of the system are too,” he said.

The school division’s Dreamcatcher Coaching program has been expanded to include every school in the division this year.

“This is sort of near the final year of the implementation,” said Bratvold. “We started with eight schools and last year, we had up to 23. This year we’re going to have the rest of them.”

Teaching coaches help other teachers work towards school goals, gather strategies and come up and revise ideas.

This time is spent during preparation periods or coaches accompany teachers in their classroom during lessons and activities.

“We’re seeing some really good results as far as achievement of school goals” said Bratvold. “Every school has a goal as far as literacy or numeracy…and they have some strategies, and they have some things in place, and this just helps to really focus that and provide an additional amount of time to achieve them.”

Bratvold said they credit this program with a higher number of students able to reading at grade level. They’ve also found the program helps improve text comprehension.

On a smaller scale—between four and six people, according to Bratvold—students will receive assistance from reading tutors. This program applies primarily to elementary students and will pick up some time after thanksgiving.

“The idea is, once we have an idea where students are at in terms of their reading abilities and supports that they need, then we’ll say, ‘OK, now we need to put some extra reading supports in these schools or this classroom,’” said Bratvold.

They first implemented this support system last January, and Bratvold said they’ve had some really good results.

The reading tutors working with the division are mostly retired teachers who had received additional training in reading instruction and intervention.

“The reading tutor, working with kids in a fairly intensive way, every day for a period of weeks, helps to address the individual needs that those students have,” said Bratvold.

The main goals, he said, are improving student’s fluency and comprehension when it comes to reading.

“There are some things you can do to support and enable kids to learn to read, and then, if you see there’s some challenges there, you can diagnose where those challenges are and help to intervene, particularly in that area,” said Bratvold.

The program ran from January to June last year which is the timeline for this year as well.

Stand-out student leaders gather in the area

This year’s Provincial Student Leadership Forum will be held at W.P. Sandin Public High School in Shellbrook.

“It’s an honour for us to be able to host this,” said Bratvold. “It’s also really exciting to have really high calibre student leaders gathering and talking about ideas.”

“Lots of our high school students are really excited about being able to participate in that.”

Bratvold said they’ve estimated up to 700 students and teachers from around the province will be in attendance, able to enjoy guest speakers and various activities put together by the division.

The convention will be held from Sept. 16-18.

asoloducha@panow.com

On Twitter: @alex_soloducha

by Alex Soloducha

Sask. Rivers Schools get ready to start a new year off right

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