This Week at Winsor

Responsive Classroom

Our early adopters have done a fantastic job implementing the Responsive Classroom (RC) approach. These educators, after attending a four day training this past summer, have made great strides during our first four months. One essential component of the RC approach is Morning Meeting. Morning Meeting sets a positive tone for the day, purposefully having students meet and share with their peers. Students build and maintain healthy, inclusive relationships with one another. While a Kindergarten meeting may look very different from a Grade 5 meeting, the desired result is the same: a warm, inviting classroom culture that centers student learning. Responsive Classroom is so valuable because the approach centers upon academic growth. Instead of being an add on or extra, Responsive Classroom both builds school culture and contributes to academic performance. We fully anticipate full training for our staff and full implementation for our school in the fall of 2019. In the meantime, educators that have been training are regularly opening their classroom to other faculty members as a means of sharing expertise and building instructional capacity.

To learn more about Responsive Classroom, please click on the link below:

https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/

Collins Writing

Our educators have also implemented the Collins Writing Approach. This central component of our School Improvement Plan (SIP) is longitudinal and practical. Students can learn the Collins Approach as early as Kindergarten and apply the skills and dispositions all the way through Grade 12. The Collins Approach is flexible and practical, easy to implement across content areas. Our students write across all subjects. Please speak to your child or children about what they write. They will be able to tell you about what a Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3 writing assignment is all about. To learn more about the Collins Approach please visit:

http://collinsed.com/

American Reading Company (ARC)

Multiple Winsor teachers have participated in a district wide pilot program using instructional materials from the American Reading Company. These books offer students a rich, diverse choice of texts that directly connect to major Science concepts. Students have the ability to choose texts of great variety that are both fun and challenging. We have already seen an increase in student scientific vocabularies. Our students use these texts to become true research scientists, diving deeply into content. These materials work in partnership with our Science kits. If you are interested in learning more, please see below:

https://www.americanreading.com/

We hope you can join us for our in person, mid-year review at our next School Improvement Team meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, February 5th at 3:30pm in the Winsor library.