As the 2023-2024 school year unfolded, we continued to scan and explore data to gather a sense of our strengths and stretches at Mitchell. Our main guiding questions were:

• What is our evidence that we have accomplished our goal of Connecting Through the Arts?
• What is data telling us about our needs/stretches at Mitchell?
• What do our students perceive as stretches for themselves and their school community?

To find answers to these questions we explored:

• Student surveys;
• Anecdotal evidence from staff;
• FSA data from this school year and previous 2 years;
• MDI data;
• Student Progress Reports Data from this school year

In May and June, we transformed our staff room into a “data museum” for staff (see pictures below).

This gave staff the opportunity to explore data and information relevant to our school story. The culminating event was our June staff meeting where staff gathered around the “data museum” and discussed the information they could observe in a critical way. Here are the key findings that came out of that conversation:

1. We are ready to move on to a new goal/school story

Through students’ surveys, it was established that arts/music was a strength at Mitchell. All classes have engaged in fun art projects this year and our music program is very strong, as showcased by our Winter Concert, our Music in Our Schools concert and our year-end music performance.

While we are connecting easily through the arts, student surveys have revealed that a portion of our student community continues to have difficulty establishing friendships and a sense of belonging. This means that we will need to continue our efforts in that aspect as we move on to a new school story.

2. We have “zoomed in” on three main areas which we could put our focus on:

• Numeracy skills: Our FSA scores in Math were lower than expected --- 40% emerging in Gr. 7 and 56% emerging in Gr. 4. Our student progress reports also indicate that over 50% of our students are in the emerging/developing ranges in Math. In student surveys, Math was often self-identified as an individual stretch by students. During conversations with staff, several identified their need for more support in Math for their students.

• Literacy skill: While our FSA scores in Language Arts were higher than expected (77% on track in Grade 7 and 57% on track/extending in Grade 4), student progress reports paint a different story, with around 60% of our students identified as emerging/developing in their Language Arts skills. In student surveys, many students self-identified writing or reading as a stretch. During conversations with staff, several identified literacy skills as a goal for students and most were satisfied by the support they are receiving for their students in that area.

• SEL: The MDI and the student surveys revealed that most of our students feel connected to their school community. Some, however, identified building friendships as a challenging part of their school life. Many others also mentioned that they found behaviours of their classmates challenging. In general conversations with staff, we also found that several of our students are anxious and that they lack a growth mindset when it comes to learning.

3. Our next step is to meet in committee to determine what our next goal/school story should be.

In light of this important conversation, the FESL committee met in June and determined, based on the evidence gathered that, in early September, we will propose our new school story to be:

“Building confidence through strong numeracy skills”

Our hope is that this school story could support our learners and staff in the area of numeracy, which was identified by several staff and students as an area for development. We hope that building confidence in Math will support students feeling more confident in other areas as well, such as problem-solving, critical thinking, and growth mindset. We will propose this goal to the whole staff in September, as we hope to tackle this as quickly as possible.