Fostering Effective Relationships
A leader builds positive working relationships with members of the school community and local community.
Relationships with Colleagues
I believe in building a positive and productive culture in my school. My goal is to support my staff so that they can deliver their best lessons to students while empowering them to solve their own challenges. I have been working on supporting staff without taking on everyone's projects. While providing solutions can be faster, I am finding that coaching staff to find their own solutions has lead to more effective results in the long run. By allowing staff to build their own capacity I am able to find time to support staff and classes in other ways, such as team teaching or taking a small pull out groups.
Team building during staff meetings and throughout the work day is very important to me. I want staff to have a sense of play and fun in their work because I know this filters into their classes and lessons.
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Building a new administration team that incorporates the values of both members while respecting the legacies in the building is a priority. We met and communicated our hopes for the 2019-2020 year prior to the year starting and have had weekly meetings since.
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Having fun at work - letting our teachers break the rules alongside their students.
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Preparing to rob the grade 6 classroom. (Evidence and Investigation lesson.)
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Creating and awarding staff "Oscars" in early March.
Relationships with Students
Building lasting relationships with students is my favourite part of being a teacher. As an administrator, I no longer have a homeroom class that I build a culture with, I have a chance to build culture within the whole school. I can be in and out of classrooms, assist with lessons, and cover classes to provide release time. This has allowed me to develop deeper relationships with students that face larger challenges. I get to support their growth and development over the years as they progress through our school.
The connections we can make with students never fails to amaze me. We need to be open to the possibilities. Something as simple as a stuffed rat, and Instagram post and hallway chats can profoundly change a student's experience.
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I love cheering on our students' initiatives and projects. I promote and celebrate their projects and activities through our social media accounts and be being present for as many of the activities as time allows.
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I also ran a canteen program, providing an opportunity for students to sell items at lunch, help me with banking, stock our products, and help decide where to spend the canteen profits. Students took great pride in being a part of this group.
Canteen open and ready for business.
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Preparing a bank deposit.
Grade 6 mentoring a grade 4 student. |
Relationships with Parents and the Community
Parents connect with us on FaceBook and Instagram. Their comments are powerful and authentic.
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Parents as well as community members came to attend our Day or Remembrance to honour our service members.
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Capturing the events in the school and posting them allows community to see inside our walls.
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One of the areas I had an opportunity to grow in 2016-2017 was my involvement with our community.
I facilitated a partnership with Lacombe Ford. Lacombe Ford provided us with funds to run our school lunch program. This money allowed us to give any student in need a lunch or a snack. They have also hosted hot lunch days where they have bought pizza for every student and every teacher in our school!
This is an example of a parent connection that grew into a larger community connection. I taught Kathy's son a few years back when he was in my grade 9 math class.
I facilitated a partnership with Lacombe Ford. Lacombe Ford provided us with funds to run our school lunch program. This money allowed us to give any student in need a lunch or a snack. They have also hosted hot lunch days where they have bought pizza for every student and every teacher in our school!
This is an example of a parent connection that grew into a larger community connection. I taught Kathy's son a few years back when he was in my grade 9 math class.
Working with Blackfalds Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) I have helped provide many programs and guest speakers for our students. We have hosted BiggerThanThat with Ryan Laird, Butt Ugly, Theresa "Corky" Larsen-Jonasson the author of The Sharing Circle, Natasha Deen the author, and SWAT funding.
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