Intellectual
International Baccalaureate Program
Since 1985 Abby Sr has been proud to offer the most rigorous academic programme that is available to grade 11 and 12 high school students, the IB Diploma Programme. During this two-year programme, students learn concepts that are typically taught in first year university while further developing critical thinking and research skills that contribute to their success in post-secondary education. Students are actively involved throughout the community by organizing and participating in Creativity, Activity, and Service (CAS) projects. Every fall, students enrolled as diploma candidates are invited to attend a CAS retreat for team building activities.
The IB Programme not only aims to challenge students academically, it’s ultimate goal is to encourage students to become well-rounded thinkers and communicators who are open-minded, caring, and reflective in all aspects of their lives.
Integrated Studies Program
The Integrated Studies Program is an alternate academic program, for academically capable students, founded on relationship, structure, support, and accountability. Although ISP students complete the same required core courses as other secondary students, they are placed in a grade cohort with same group of peers, one consistent teacher and a classroom EA. Within the program, there is built in flexibility which allows individual needs to be met more thoroughly and consistently throughout the year. The program is founded on the three pillars of success - attendance, achievement, and attitude, which are recognized at celebrated at our monthly assemblies. Ultimately the the goals of ISP are to engage students in their learning, help them feel connected at school, and to build their confidence so that they can graduate as healthy, thriving, responsible young adults.
Focus on Literacy and Numeracy
Assessment Prep: In alignment with our district goals, the staff of Abby Senior have revamped our school wide approach to supporting, and preparing students for the grade 10 and 12 literacy assessments, and the grade 10 numeracy assessment. In addition to using sample and similar type questions in our everyday teaching, students are getting the opportunity to come together in the learning commons under our LC teacher for a walk through of the assessment. Included in the walk through are not only practice questions, but also online test features such as highlighting, vocabulary assistance, calculator features, split screen views and much more. Students have been engaged in each of the sessions and are now much more prepared for the assessment knowing what to expect, and how to use all of the assessment tools to support them in giving their best effort.
Literacy Instruction: We have spent some time rethinking how to best and intentionally support and teach literacy in all our classes. We have developed several language acquisition classes to support the learning of our English Language learners, and have committed to smaller class sizes, specific strategies, at level reading testing, progress monitoring, and an expansion of a variety of text similar to what students see on literacy assessments in all of our English classes grades 9 through 12. With an increase focus on strategies for reading, reading comprehension, and informational text students exposure to and confidence with informational and non-traditional text is helping students engage with text beyond a novel study or short story. As a result we are seeing a trend of increased confidence, expanded vocabularies, high levels of engagement, and a more intentional approach to literacy in our classrooms.
Weekly Strategies in our Staff Bulletin: Each week we publish our staff newsletter and a new feature this year is a ready to use, weekly strategy that supports numeracy and literacy in our classes. These are created and shared with the intention of providing staff a quick way to stay focused on our school goals and to ensure that students are getting the skills they need to be successful and confident in their learning.
When we teach language skills in context we are ensuring that all students have access to grade level concepts.
SIOP Training
Our department heads and several staff members participated in a 3 day professional development sessions on sheltered instruction observation protocol which is a fresh approach to intentional teach the language, vocabulary, and reading skills to students. In addition staff also worked with several AI tools that allow documents that are already created to be uploaded and translated into different languages or adapted to different reading levels. This gives students a chance to read in both their first language and in English as they work their way through course content.
Key Points:
- Intentionality - planning for specific instruction of important terms, reading strategies, and explicitly teaching students the language and skills they need in order to be successful in that lesson or unit.
- Key vocabulary repetition – In order to learn a new word, they need to be exposed to it a minimum of 14 times.
- Emphasize three forms of communication: speaking, reading and writing.
- Share with students precise learning goals – annotate these goals for greater vocabulary understanding and growth.
- I can describe (descriptive language) the assets multilingual learners bring to the classroom
- I can explain the differences between general classroom instruction and SIOP instruction (compare and contrast).
- Start a word wall for each unit, which is kind of a mind map for the unit. Make connections to other courses and other learning.
- Emphasize command terms and their specific meaning.
- Analyze, describe, emphasize, calculate, define, discuss, etc….
