I have received pictures from Darren Carpenter sharing news from the Trades and Careers Program and many pictures from Darlene Havens at LDSS.  Thank you both for sharing and I thought that the easiest way to enjoy your great pictures was to place them in a video.  Enjoy!  Please continue to send me stories, pictures and videos that capture your school community as it also helps remind me about how important it is to share across our district.

Other news from around the district include a big congratulations to Andrew Schulz who will be heading off as a participant to the Taiwan International Science Fair.  Congratulations Andrew….Nechako Lakes is very proud of you!  I know that Andrew is a big fan of Bacon Jam and so if anyone has a great recipe, please pass it on to Andrew’s mom Lilly who teaches at Mouse Mountain.

A few weeks ago I sent out an email to all teachers with links to the new DRAFT k – 9 (Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies – other subject areas to be released shortly) curriculum that is focussed on competencies rather than a broad set of learning outcomes.  The most appealing part of this new DRAFT is that each of the k-9 subject areas is captured in a single page rather than 100s of pages.  As with all DRAFT curriculum from the Ministry, it is imperative that teachers take the time to review the documents and provide feedback.  I would be interested in hearing directly from teachers regarding feedback of this new curriculum framework.

The Babine School construction project continues and elementary teacher Lyndsey Graff is helping to document the progress with her class…..thanks Lyndsey!

Here is another video from Michael Gaal, our Lead Teacher, at BESS sharing another view of the contraction:

I have recently been re-reading sections of John Hattie’s book, Visible Learning and am amazed at the succinct way that he has summarized research regarding the impact of a variety of instructional strategies.  As teachers consider approaches to instruction, Hattie’s work has become a necessary resource to consult.  Self reported grades by students are continually shown to be the single greatest influence on student learning.  Watch this John Hattie video:

Have a great week!