ESL Teacher Meeting

It's Wednesday night late November, just got home from hot yoga. Today was a long day, started at 7:45 setting up for South ESL Teacher meeting. Tried video taping the session so the people who were unable to attend can view the work to be done.At 11:30 packed the whole show up and drove to Milton to do the presentation again for the teachers assigned to the north schools.Finished at 4:00, packed it all up again and returned to unload at New Street Ed. Centre


The framework for today's work was:


Reporting
2.8 Ongoing Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting (ministry policy)
Expected Practice #6: Programs and Pathways


Learning goal:
Understand and implement the process for Transition for Kindergarten and grade 8-9 Transition
Co-create a reporting guide for ELLs in Halton


In Halton a large majority of the ELLs are Candian born and arrive at Kindergarten with no early learning experience. As a result ESL teachers need to help K teachers understand the  importance of the orientation process, understanding that every learner needs to adjust to the new social environment and language in a unique way and at an individual pace. 


Many ELLs arrive at school with high anxiety which may manifest in many different ways:
not eating
not sleeping
toileting accidents
throwing up 
crying
running out of the room


As a result a problem solving process was designed to support the students and a pre-school story time program was implemented.


In Secondary, many of our stage one and two ELLs are surprised to find out that their home school does not offer ESL support. Our model requires students to attend satellite schools.As a result a Transition Plan has been created to help Families choose the best program of support.


Looking forward to tomorrow's community engagement meeting and helping schools use the James Banks model,and the  7 equity lenses as they they work toward building a culture of equity and inclusion in their schools.