Good afternoon,
As we head into our third week of school, I am excited to share information about our new Wednesday Wonders programming in the middle school. Before I do so, there are a few important reminders/announcements as follows:
- We, like many other areas, are starting to see an uptick in Covid cases. We appreciate your attention to the CDC's prevention recommendations to keep yourself and others safe and hopefully help us stay (mostly) fully staffed!
- Online student registration forms are due today!! As of Friday morning we were just under 70% complete. Thank you for completing it today if you have not already done so.
- We are postponing the start of School Sing to give a little bit more time for preparation and planning. The first School Sing is now scheduled for Tuesday, September 17 at 8:05 am.
- Our deepest apologies for the lack of Porta Potties for use during soccer. We are working to rectify this ASAP!
- The Middle School Learner Development and Programming Committees meet at PES for their joint meeting tomorrow (Monday, September 9) at 4 pm.
- PES will host the Primary Voting on Tuesday. Please take extra care at drop-off and pick-up that day as there will be extra foot traffic in the parking lot.
- Finally, join us for the School Board Meeting at 5:30 pm on Tuesday (Music Room) and the PTA meeting at 7 pm Wednesday (Meriden Library Community Room.) I am attaching my report below and you will find the latest updates from the PTA in the PTA Announcements section of this newsletter.
Relevance, Rigor and Wednesday Wonders
“There has always been a “tension” between covering all of the content and skills that students are going to be evaluated on, and taking the time to help students’ grow their capacity for deeper learning, said Camille Farrington, a managing director at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, who studies academic rigor.” Farrington also says that sparking students’ intellectual curiosity is a key entry point to rigorous work. (Education Week Special Report, “How to Give Students the Confidence to Take on Rigorous Work (edweek.org)”)
And while we can all agree students deserve to learn and grow and that rigor is critical to that process, there’s a LOT to it. Here are just a few of the practices and conditions necessary for rigorous learning:
Curriculum that supports strong ELA and math skills/ knowledge
Relevance (culturally relevant texts, real world tasks/problems, etc.)
Curriculum that is well-rounded (includes science, social studies, others)
Collaboration that helps students develop key communication skills while also expanding their perspective and understanding of a problem.
Time in the schedule to help students who might have gaps
Problem-solving
Engagement
Teacher training
Time for teachers to plan relevant and engaging lessons
Meaningful teacher collaboration to reflect on their instruction in the context of impact on student learning
To read more, check out this advocacy fact sheet from ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act. - ESSA_FactSheet__rigorous-learning_Hyperlinks-UPDATED.pdf (edtrust.org))
Since the pandemic, we - like so many schools - found ourselves facing a rigor problem. We are systematically restoring the conditions necessary for rigor: allocating time and resources to support students with gaps in learning; reestablishing class routines to minimize distractions to learning; taking a hard look at our curriculum, investing in resources and training to make improvements as needed. Over the past three years we also created time and structures for meaningful collaboration and planning time for teachers.
Offering a rich and well-rounded curriculum and a schedule that supports extended time for collaborative and engaging instruction can be challenging in a small school. This is felt most acutely in middle school. We simply have fewer staff for each content area and fewer people who can cover planning blocks. This requires some very creative thinking. Over the last two years, we started to play with the schedule, challenging ourselves to think outside of the box to support learning and engagement and to allow educators time for collaboration. As collaborations increased, our middle school and EA teachers became increasingly interested in offering longer blocks of interdisciplinary instruction where students have the time to grapple with relevant problems. This past summer, with this goal in mind, teachers attended curriculum design and co-teaching workshops. We feel ready to roll out offerings that are designed to promote voice, choice, relevance, and rigor for our 6th through 8th graders. Recognizing the offerings and approach are new for all of us - students, teachers and parents - we feel it most appropriate to focus on one day per week - Wednesday.
The Middle School and Essential Arts teams seek to expand opportunities for growth and engagement through “Wednesday Wonders.” A standard “Wednesday Wonders” day includes:
(100 min.) Interdisciplinary block(s) of instruction featuring project-based learning related to core content areas (for instance a forensics lab project in science where students also receive expository writing instruction.)
(50 min) Advisory - focusing on academic goal setting/reflection, executive functioning, and community building.
(50 min) Math instruction.
(30 min) Academic Block where they have access to targeted support from their content area teacher.
(30 min) Club Block - offering 6-week club sessions that promote learning through play and collaboration. Examples include Math Thinking Playground, Chess Club, LEGO League, Coding Club, student newspaper, and more.
(60 min) Elective Block - our EA Team is coordinating an extended workshop-style elective block where students have the opportunity to choose, and hopefully even co-create, six weeks of hands-on learning. We are seeking community collaborators (see below) to increase the relevancy of these offerings throughout the year. NOTE: During this one hour block, our middle school team has time to collaborate with one another on their instructional planning.
As Wednesday Wonders gets going, we welcome your questions. We will continue to review student learner data and collect feedback as we reflect on our instruction. Parent Teacher conferences will be important times for you to share your input as well.
We look forward to continuing our journey towards more relevance and rigor as we strive for stronger student outcomes.
Audra
Audra Bucklin, Principal
603.469.3250, ext 223
abucklin@plainfieldschool.org
P.S. Please enjoy some opening days pictures throughout the newsletter!
