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Principal Information

Secondary Contact Information

• Low socio-economic
• Newcomer

• indigo.ca
• In an Indigo, Chapters or Coles store

Contact 1

Contact 2

St. David Catholic Elementary School serves the largest boundary of Elementary Schools in HWCDSB. We are an Equal Opportunity School, where we provide Nutrition Programs, Cooking Workshops, Taste Buds Support, Food 4 Kids. Through these programs, we feed students nutritional food throughout the day, and also provide food packages for the evening and weekends to support families at home. The past few years have been a challenging time for everyone in many aspects. It has been and continues to be a tremendous challenge especially for children and families who may need to rebuild their academic skills. We are a data-driven school and we have completed Literacy Assessments for all of our Primary Grade Students. The weekly Running Record data demonstrates a drastic decline, especially in the area of reading to learn. We have applied and were granted funding to support at-home Reading Programs such as Lexia and Raz Kids. The Teachers have access to student progress as students develop their reading skills. Many of our students have Learning disabilities and remain at a Level 00 in their reading development. We feel that a disconnect from actual Library experiences has regrettably resulted in a decrease in interest of reading. Our goal is to reconnect students with books, to develop a positive relationship with books of interest, and to develop a "reading to learn" attitude, after they "learn to read".

The following are some of our project-based literacy programs at St. David CES.
BIPSA FOCUS: 1. Assessment continuum 2. Differentiation of instruction 3. Inquiry-based learning
FOCUS: (Urgent Student Learning Need) Reading Comprehension and Organization of thoughts.
GOAL STATEMENT: To develop grade level reading and writing skills (sentence structure) with an ongoing focus on vocabulary and mechanics and organization of thoughts.
BIPSA Targeted Action: 2.1 b) Co-construct success criteria with students, through modeling, discussion, questioning, and the use of exemplars, to create precise and attainable descriptors using student-friendly language.
Targeted Actions: If/then statements If we use graphic organizers to develop organization of thought and enhance vocabulary, then students will transfer their thoughts to the end product through modeling (Teacher and peer) and explicit teaching.
How will we know when we have achieved this goal? What evidence will we need to collect? Rubric, Reading Response, Conferencing, Strategic teacher moderation around the writing process to determine gaps.
Resources school will use: Curriculum Department Support
What support/ resources do we need to be successful at implementation? Reading Room, SMART Ideas, Graphic Organizers, Teacher Librarian, OERB online resources, Curriculum documents, Writer's Notebook, more interest books, and Guided Reading texts to support ongoing Running Record data collection.

The past few years have been a challenging time for everyone in many aspects. It has been and continues to be a tremendous challenge especially for children and families who may need to rebuild their academic skills. Additional books would benefit St. David CES by supporting a program where parents and volunteers can come to our Wellness Hub to read with Students . Our Wellness Hub is used to support Mental Health initiatives and one of our foci is to teach children that reading can be used as a form of meditative and reflective practice. Additional books would assist with our Reading Buddies Program in our Wellness Hub, Book Talk Initiative in the Junior/Intermediate Grades, and with our Book Nook section in our Wellness Hub. We also plan to continue our School Wide Book Talk Program where students present a book that aligns with a school goal (Scripture focus for example; Anti-Bullying messages, etc...) Virtually through MS Teams throughout the school. We would also like to invite specific authors, parents, and members of the Community (Pastor, Police Officers, Fire-fighters, Hamilton Public Library reps, etc...) to participate in our live/virtual Book Talks. Having more books would extend the possibility of many reading options.

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I)
• Reconciliation and/or Indigenous Knowledge
• Environmental Literacy

1) Increase number of books that target interests, especially for boys and gender equality.

2) Increase number of BIPOC books.

1) Diverse selection of key genres and/or subject areas
2) To promote student inquiry by enhancing the library learning commons; and to enhance reading levels by 50% over the next 3 years

• One of the main goals of the Adopt A School program is for our Indigo stores and high-needs schools to connect with their surrounding community to generate awareness about the Canadian literacy crisis and about the challenges schools and educators face.
• A large part of what contributes to fundraising success during the run of the Adopt A School campaign rests on building firm partnerships between schools and their supporting Indigo retail partners in executing a unified vision.

This section of the application will give you a chance to express your ideas and capacity for effectively partnering with a neighboring (or remote) store to communicate your story, as well as promote awareness-raising activities within your own school and parent community.

Our plan would include poster contests for students to demonstrate what books and and reading mean to them. These posters would be sent to the partnering store for display in the store. The posters would also be posted in neighboring Public Libraries and Community Stores. This would increase awareness of the Reading initiatives at St. David School, while also establishing a positive connection and relationship with the Store. Students are visual learners for the most part, and this would allow for increased awareness and connection. We also plan to invite representatives from the Indigo Store to send weekly greetings virtually through MS Teams; inviting the Indigo team to participate in Kahoot games (online engagement) with individual classes would increase partnership and personal connection between School and Indigo. Links to various awareness initiatives would be posted on our website, Newsletters, weekly Memos, Instagram, Twitter, and pollinated with neighboring Schools and Community venues. Our Student Council plans to create a video to highlight the St. David Story around our "Reading for Wellness" Initiatives.

Please see the "Partnering with an Indigo Store" section above which align with these initiatives:

Using Raz Kids/Lexia Programs: Reading challenges: engage students in a school-wide reading challenge or students and parents in a home-reading challenge
Read to Succeed Initiative: Fundraisers: School-wide read-a-thons, donation jars in every classroom, etc.
Parent School Council Spring-Fling Reading Barbecue: Hosting a virtual Literacy Night at your school (run in part with your school’s Parent council) to drive awareness of your school’s literacy
Volunteer Reading Buddies with St. John Henry Newman Secondary School Student Council: Connecting with a local high school or Private school to help with fundraising for your school (many high-school students participate in volunteer projects as part of their graduation requirements or participate in Co-op community-based programs)
Reading Competition with a neighboring School: St. Martin of Tours CES