September 15th, 2013

 

During the winter and spring of 2013, the staff at Park Manor defined four key areas that impact our students success or lack thereof.  We found that during our discussions about student achievement during collaboration time in our Staff Learning Centre that some students were not increasing their achievement level.  The Stickies we use with every students picture on them really helped us identify which students were not moving forward and sparked the discussion to ask why.  As we delved deeper into why some students were not improving, we identified four “Root Cause” areas.   The teachers then described these four areas and developed an action plan for the first week of school and committed to highlighting these areas throughout the entire school year.  We call the four areas the “Panther PAWS“.  After much discussion as a staff  and with students, we finalized the names of the four Paws to be Know Yourself, Respect Yourself, Respect Others and Work Hard.

All students were introduced to the four PAWS during the first week of school and participated in many activities designed to make them real for the students and help them see how the PAWS are integral to their success at Park Manor.  The staff also came up with the idea of creating a puzzle of the four PAWS and our Art teacher, Mr. Slemmon, drew an image of a panther and four paws, which was then digitized and cut out at M&T Printing.  Each homeroom class was given four puzzle pieces, one for each of the PAWS, and asked to draw, write or design each piece to exemplify one of the PAWS.  The students were in charge of their puzzle pieces and each one was unique.  They were all amazing!

Last Thursday, September 12th, we held a whole school assembly and put the puzzle (52 pieces) together and it was truly amazing.  Every member of our school community, students and staff, wrote their name on at least one puzzle piece as a commitment to keep up the four Paws.

Click the link to watch the puzzle being put together – http://youtu.be/ZjUymkj-FW4

Categories: Community Of Learners