Social Responsibility at Blakeburn Elementary School

Whole School Activities

Morning Messages

As part of the daily, “Morning Message,” (each class, in turn, is responsible for reading the message to the school), the specific focus for social responsibility is identified. The following sample is from a recent message:

“One of our school goals is tro create a socially responsible learning community. This week we will focus on appreciating the diversity of our Blakeburn community. We will do this by honouring and respecting the differences between ourselves and others.”

Throughout the week, the focus area is developed and reinforced through classroom activities designed by individual teachers, as well as school-wide modeling and discussion at the Wednesday gatherings, the Power Hour activities, and classroom visits by the principal.

Other topics for weekly goals include:

appreciating diversity - honouring and respecting the similarities and differences between people
consideration - having regard for other people and their feelings
courtesy - being courteous by treating others as if we value and care for them
patience - sticking to something for as long as it takes to finish it; not complaining or criticizing others; calmly waiting your turn, trusting that the results will come
respect
kindness

More ideas for weekly goals can be found in the Virtues Project, Resource Materials.

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Gatherings

The whole school meets bi-weekly for a “Wednesday Gathering.” At each gathering, the administrator focuses on some aspect of social responsibility, teaching specific behaviours, engaging students and staff in role-playing, and reinforcing the language of the performance standards. At a recent gathering, the topic was including others in rainy day activities:

The principal introduced the topic and explained that, at Blakeburn, no-one has the right to exclude others. Everyone has the right to be included. No other behaviour will be accepted.
With the help of some staff members, she role-played a situation where students playing a game excluded someone who wanted to join them. As part of the activity, she invited the students to rate the behaviour they observed—did it meet expectations?
Students correctly concluded that the behaviour they observed was “not yet within expectations;” then several students joined some staff members to role-play how the situation could be changed to “fully meet expectations.”
Other students were invited to role-play various levels including “exceeding expectations.”
The principal lead a discussion of what appropriately including others looks and sounds like, while one of the staff members recorded ideas on an overhead.
The principal then reiterated the school expectations: “This is what including others looks and sounds like. This is socially responsible behaviour. This is the expectation at Blakeburn. No other behaviour will be tolerated. Students whose behaviour does not meet expectations will be receive behaviour support to help them learn to make wiser decisions.”

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Power Hour

Each week, the principal works with half of the students (approximately 120 from grades 1-5) so that their teachers can attend their action research “power hour.” During this hour, the whole group works on a topic related to social responsibility. Over the last few months, topics have included: specific safety concerns that have arisen on the playground; writing pen pal letters and sending gifts to children in Cuba; solving problems; using the social responsibility standards. The following activities occurred at a recent session:

Students were asked to think about a problem situation that had arisen in class or on the playground. They offered various suggestions; of those, the principal chose to deal with one where students had teased another student who screwed up a skipping demonstration in P.E.
They then defined the problem in problem in general terms: Not being supportive when someone has a problem. Making fun of people’s mistakes. They talked about why it is important to support each other, and how it feels to be the person who makes a mistake.
Students were organized into groups of 4. Each group was given two laminated, colour-coded performance standards cards—Not Yet Within Expectations and Fully Meets Expectations (although there are four levels on the scale, in large group activities and those involving younger children, the staff often work with just two levels.)
The principal invited volunteers to help her role-play the problem. After the role-play, each group had a few minutes to decide what level of performance they had observed, and to identify one or two pieces of evidence to support their rating.
At a signal, each group help up the card they felt best described the role-played behaviour; several groups were then asked to give their evidence.
Groups were invited to role-play other situations that illustrated one of the levels (not yet within or meeting); other groups tried to decide what level of behaviour was being illustrated, held up their rating cards to show their decision, and offered evidence.
Before leaving, each student was asked to think about one situation where he or she could immediately work on being more supportive to others.
The principal provided staff members with a brief description of the session.

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School Improvement Files

To monitor school improvement, the principal and administrative staff are developing school improvement files which include evidence of student performance in reading, writing, numeracy, and social responsibility, collected and evaluated by classroom teachers twice each year. The data in these files is intended to provide a systematic “big picture” of how the whole school community is doing in key areas of student learning. Each file includes a summary sheet that shows the level of the performance standards that the student reached on samples collected in October and in April for:

Writing: Personal writing, stories and poems, and/or information writing. (Minimum of one writing same from each period.)

Reading: Literature and/or information. (Minimum of one sample for each period)

Numeracy: performance sample from any area (Minimum of one for each period)

Social responsibility: ratings for each of the following aspects of the performance standards scale from each period; where possible, teachers include relevant evidence (often self-evaluation or reflective writing), but this is not a requirement:

Contributing to classroom and school community
Solving problems in peaceful ways
Valuing diversity and respecting human rights
Exercising democratic rights and responsibilities

Note: These files are not intended for evaluation or reporting on individual students – classroom teachers continue to use a variety of ongoing methods for assessing and evaluating individual student growth. In most cases, the student samples and performance evaluations contained in the school improvement files are copies of material from teacher’s files and student portfolio—however, teachers are in no way required to rely on the material in the school improvement files.

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School Survey

Students, parents, and staff were surveyed, using the performance standards, to find our their perceptions of the level of social responsibility in the school. The survey helped to raise awareness and understanding of social responsibility, reinforce the performance descriptions and levels, and emphasize its importance. Responses were used to raise awareness of issues, plan activities, and provide feedback to staff students. Preliminary Results Students (grades 2-5) were guided through the survey, with teachers reading the descriptions aloud; parents completed the survey at a parent’s night. Participants rated the school community on the aspects described in the Quick Scale K-3, 4-5, circling the description in each section that best described their view of the school community, including students, teachers, and other staff members:

One of our school goals is to create a safe, caring, socially responsible learning community at Blakeburn. The purpose of this Social Repsonsibiltiy Rating Scale is to gather parent, student, and staff perceptions of the school.

Please highlight or circle on box in each section that best describes “typical” behaviour at Blakeburn Elementary. We will use this intial data to compare perceptions, identify strengths, set goals, and create an actions plan. We will compare this initial baseline data with similar data we collect later.

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Reporting to Parents

Individual student report cards, in keeping with provincial policy, include a structured written report identifying areas of strength, accomplishment, as well as goals, and support plans. (At grades 4 and 5, students also receive letter grades for each subject.) At Blakeburn, teachers have agreed that each structured written report will begin with a short section describing the student’s social responsibility, often using phrases and descriptions directly from the performance standards, and identifying the level at which expectations have/have not been met. Some reports also include the student’s goals which often mention improvements in social responsibility:

“My first goal is put capitals at the beaging and piridat the end of a sentens. My second goal is speak nice to others.”
“My first goal is to raes my hand more ofen. My second goal is captals at the beginning peurits at the end.”

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Quilting Project

During the first five months of the school year, an artist-in-residence worked with each class in the school, teaching students to express themselves through art. During this time, each student created a self-portrait in acrylic on fabric; these were stitched together to create a community quilt that hangs in the school, representing every member of the school community. As part of their contribution, each student sewed a button on the quilt, working one-on-one with the artist. During one of the power hours, students brainstormed words that represented their community; these words (most of them reflecting the emphasis on social responsibility) form the border of the quilt.

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Social Responsibility Cards

The teacher assistant reproduced the social responsibility scale as a series of laminated, colour-coded cards and provided sets for each classroom that students can use them to rate characters in books, or classroom role-plays.

Several sets of four colour-coded 8.5 x 5.5 cards. These contain the performance standards labels in large print (green=not yet within expectations; blue=meets expectations (minimal); red=fully meets expectations; yellow=exceeds expectations.)
Several sets of 16 cards (4.25 x 5.5) with the same colour-coding as above. Each card in this set contains the actual performance description for combination of aspect/level; (e.g., Fully Meets Expectations for Contributing; Exceeds Expectations for Solving Problems Peacefully.)

Students like using the cards; even the youngest students are able to work with and remember two levels (see Classroom Activities for a description of a kindergarten activity)—when asked to list all of green things he could think of, one 5-year-old announced, “green is the not yet within expectations card!”

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Behaviour Support

Students whose behaviour is judged to be “not yet within expectations” are provided with behaviour support. They lose recess and or lunch “free time” and “give back to the community for their unwise decisions,” generally in the form of helping the principal beautify the community (i.e., pick up garbage.)

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Facilitating Socially Responsible Behaviour

Decisions about how the school will operate always consider implications for social responsibility.

Playground problems result in a personal visit from the principal and/or leadership team members to every class to talk about what happened.

Rainy day activities are intended to provide students with productive, engaging ways to spend their time. They have carts of board games available, along with mats for playing them in the hallways; lego in the lobby and office area; dancing groups in the library; open gym; and technology in the lab. Students are expected to make wise decisions about how they spend their time, to be inclusive, to solve any problems they encounter in a peaceful way, and to exercise their responsibility to report serious problems to an adult. All activities are open to whoever wants to participate, except the technology lab which is restricted to three students from each classroom each day (classroom teacher distribute passes before lunchtime.) Responsibility for setting up the rainy day stations is rotated among classes.

Outside activities are also designed to provide students with productive, engaging ways to spend their lunchtime. These activities include supervised hockey (every class has one day every two weeksto play hockey) soccer, basketball, tetherball, playground games (e.g., Chinese skip), chalk drawing on the blacktop, dancing to a variety of popular CD's (screened by the principal), and playing on the playground equipment.

Displays reflect the importance of community and of the individual people in it. There are several photo collages that include every student in the school; the quilts described above; student work on various themes related to social responsibility. The staff frequently talk about the importance that all displays reflect what is valued in their school community (and that all displays be the real work of students.)

No electronic bells ring in the school. Each week, one class is assigned to ring hand bells that signal when school is in session. Students are able to come into school building from 8 am on, but they are expected to engage in some activity—reading, playing games, using the technology center.

All staff members consistently use the language of the social responsibility performance standards. This constant reinforcement (e.g., “Excuse me, did that fully meet expectations?) has resulted in the students now using the language independently (e.g., “Ms. D., I’m sorry, I know what I did was not yet within expectations. I made an unwise decision. I should have gotten support.”) There is a growing shared understanding of what it means to be socially responsible.

Celebrations reflect diverse cultural backgrounds and have included Christmas, Chinese New Year, and Noruz (Iranian New Year.) In each case, the school collaborates closely with families and other community members to strengthen ties not only within the school, but between the school and its larger community

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