Friday, September 21st, 2018

It has been a wonderful start up to our 2018 / 2019 school year and students are now in their new divisions. There is a certain level of excitement and energy throughout the school during the first few weeks back. Students share stories or their summer and are exctied to be reunited with their peers. It's a wonderful time of year.

We had our first Professional Development Day on September 21st and we were presented with an opportunity to pause and revisit our new school social responsibility framework of Currie Cares and help some of our wonderful new additions to our staff learn about both the framework and the journey in its development. We also were fortunate enough to once again work with our wonderful district support teacher throughout this day.

Our intention this year here at General Currie continues to be to do our best establish a postive learning community that allows each student to reach their true potential in all areas of their social and emotional learning. We, as a staff, recognized that having a school wide social responsibility model would be an integral part in supporting and sustaining a positive learning environment and thus came the creation of Caring for Self, Caring for Others and Caring for Place through a great deal of collaboration and dialogue. Once the language and the model of Currie Cares was agreed upon, staff began to ask - where to next? How do we help our students begin to learn about the language and why we are doing this as a community? Also, do we focus on just one aspect of the Currie Cares model or do we embark on all three? What will learning contexts and opportunities look like for all grades? There was lots to consider and ponder.

We decided to begin by starting small and focusing primarily on the importance Caring for Self. Discussions with staff brought up the idea that one is likely more ready to do their best in Caring for Others and Place when they are able do their best to meet their own personal needs and Care for Self. For our Professional Development Day, staff were asked to reflect upon what it means to Care for Self and think critically about what they are doing when they are caring for themselves. We did this in small groups and recorded our ideas on chart paper. We embarked in discussion about why this is so very important to be mindful of and how we feel when we are not caring for ourselves. We were also asked to think about what we had brainstormed and what our students need each and every day to be ready to learn and reach their true potential. Our intention was also to think about how we can begin to help all of our students truly do their best in Caring for Self each and every day.

The photos collected below are some of the ideas shared by groups of staff here at Currie. Can you see any themes or ideas that pop up more than once?