Reigniting the Spark

During our assemblies at the beginning of the year, one of our themes was promoting ownership of the school. We firmly believe that ownership or investment in the school is key to creating a caring and productive environment for our students. We want all our students to be proud to say they go to Sullivan Heights.

Where does this start?

Creating ownership and investment is rooted in building connections, providing meaning and aligning purpose for our students, staff and parents. Our goal is to get all students on board for the journey. The challenge is to get them to wear the ownership of the school with pride.

The uphill battle we face is to find a way to reignite the spark for those students who have lost their desire to do school. In Kindergarten, school is exciting and full of adventure and creativity. Children enter the system full of energy and enthusiasm. Somewhere along the way we lose some of them. Sir Ken Robinson (The Element, 2009) states that 98% of all children enter kindergarten with a genius level for divergent thinking and creativity. What a great way to start. What happens to all that creativity? Robinson’s answer is that institutional schooling systematically kills creativity. Is the way we deliver school taking the shine out of our student’s eyes?

As Secondary School educators, we know that when students enter grade 8, they regenerate, find a spark, and often regain the skip in their step.  We know this is the time to foster and promote investment in order to maintain that spark all the way through to graduation. For students entering High School, investment starts in grade 8. In our work to gather and collect our grade 8 newcomers into the fold of Sullivan Heights, we realize that just introducing our grade 8’s to our school at a grade 8 retreat in September is not enough. We know that grade 8 is a formative year and is a crucial time in a child’s development to make connections. We must make sure we have a thorough process that checks, measures, and follows up with our grade 8’s throughout the year. Investment does not happen in a single event! We must implement ways to foster investment so it starts in grade 8 and sustains itself through to graduation. One idea we have been discussing is having follow up monthly activities for our grade 8’s to focus on key concepts and ideas that promote investment.

Teachers and Support Staff are an integral part of the ownership because they lead the way in promoting investment in the school. School staff, through the delivery of their lessons, involvement in school clubs, arts and athletics serve as the corner stones to a stellar school. A well-supported, energized and invigorated staff helps create the collective investment. It is staff investment that fosters, encourages and nurtures student engagement with the outcome often being improved more effectual ways of engaging and teaching. The collective ownership of a staff provides the impetus for the pedagogy to move forward.

The often overlooked and understated investment in our students are their parents and guardians. Research tells us that children are more successful when they have parents who invest, both emotionally and physically in their child’s development and education. In our work, we often repeatedly ask the question: what do students have in their lives besides school? What else are they doing aside from classwork? Research tells us that parents who actively invest in getting involved with their children reap the rewards of their child’s success. A recent article in the New York Times by Thomas Friedman entitled “How about Better Parents” poses some interesting points about the value of parental investment on student success.  Friedman cites a study called “Back to School: How parent involvement affects student achievement:

“Parental involvement can take many forms, but only a few of them relate to higher student performance. Of those that work, parental actions that support children’s learning at home are most likely to have an impact on academic achievement at school.  Monitoring homework, making sure children get to school, rewarding their efforts and talking up ideas of going to college… A parent getting involved with their children’s learning at home is the most powerful driver of academic achievement.”                                                                          (Barth, American School Journal 2011)

Harnessing the values and strengths of our stakeholders is the goal.  Personal and collective investment is the crucial ingredient needed to move our school forward and ignite the spark of success and pride.

Identify the stakeholders… Trust the process… Trust the people… Edu-Bring