For Vernon students, it was a day off from school early in the year. For teachers, Sept. 16 was a day set aside to become familiar with the new B.C. curriculum introduced by the Ministry of Education.
“We reformed the education change committee last year and they have been a very positive group of teachers and administrators to plan and work with our teachers in implementing the new curriculum and to make sure they have all the things they need to be successful in the classroom,” said Vernon superintendent Joe Rogers.
The day began at Clarence Fulton Secondary with acknowledgement of the Okanagan territory on which the district operates.
There were sessions for educators throughout the day, on topics ranging from “Incorporating Aboriginal Content into the Grade 5 Curricula,” to “Creativity and Innovation are Great, But How do Educators Assess Them?”
“The feedback I’ve had from teachers is that it’s been a great process and part of the importance of that is teachers help build that process by working with administrative staff, and teachers do what they need to do to work in the new system,” said Rogers.
In August, the district’s management team held their summer meetings and welcomed Jan Unwin from the ministry.
“She shared the most up-to-date information from the ministry on the revised curriculum, the grad program, the changes to reporting and plans for communicating with parents,” said Rogers. “We’ve been off to an excellent start this year, talking about all the changes to date.”
Director of instruction Diane Rhenisch led a session on professional boundaries and the expectations of the Teacher Regulation Branch.
“On the second day, Linda Spiller and our district helping teachers led sessions on effective assessment practices and school planning, including how to upload data to the School Inquiry website built by our IT department.
“We finished the day with Dr. Bill Cohen and Dr. Gerry William, sharing the recently completed Story of Our Ways II resources.”
