It is time to do the annual spring assessments of students on your caseload and start building Annual Instructional Plans (AIPs) for the 2024-2025 school year. Please refer to the instructions for the spring assessments, which is found below as well as on the SD61 homepage. Please prioritize students in grades 5 and 8 as transition meetings will be taking place in May and having up-to-date information to share would be helpful.

Case managers are responsible for doing the spring assessments and writing new AIPs for the 2024-2025 school year. Oral language assessments and templates for unaided writing samples are in the shared Google drive entitled ELL/ESD Teacher Resources. Once assessments are complete, use the results to determine the development of brand new AIPs with new goals and suggested supports and adaptations. Sections A to E as well as H (uploaded assessments) should be filled in for all AIPs for the 2024-2025 school year before the end of June. In the fall and before September 30, case managers will complete the remaining sections F and G in the AIPs once their support schedules have been established.

All funding-eligible ELL students for next year require a new AIP for the 2024-2025 school year. Funding eligible means that next year they will have 5 years or less years of support on the 1701. At least one language assessment must be completed (oral, reading or writing) for every student this spring and a new goals set in the 2024-2025 AIP by the end of this school year.

Writing Samples - If an unaided student writing sample is taken as part of the assessment then teacher comments and annotations must be evident on the paper. Please refer closely to the BC ELL Standards when noting strengths and stretches as the AIP goals should be related to what is in your notes on the paper. Unless a student is at the beginning stage, writing topics for middle and secondary school should require the use of persuasion or compare and contrast. Please see the shared Google file for writing prompts.

Please feel free to reach out to Jen Barber at jbarber@sd61.bc.ca for guidance or if you have any questions.

With gratitude,

Jen Barber, District ELL Teacher Support

David Hovis, District Principal

A dessert night and community partner fair is planned for the evening of Tuesday, May 7th from 7:00 to 8:00 PM in the District NLC (Neighbourhood Learning Centre), located at Victoria High School. This will be an informal gathering for all newcomer families to SD61. It is an opportunity to connect with a whole host of community partners, such as: GVPL, City of Victoria, Early Intervention (QA), UVic, Island Health, VICCIR, VIRCS, ICA, Fernwood Community Centre, Pathways & Partnerships (SD61), Human Resources (SD61), and SD61 Registration. There is still space for more participants. The school gym will be open for school-aged children to have supervised play during the event. Please have families email Tanya Clarke at welcomecentre@sd61.bc.ca.

Middle Eastern Mother Support Group

Through partnership with UVic’s Community Advisory Board and the Vancouver Island Counselling Centre for Immigrants and Refugees (VICCIR), weekly sessions are taking place to develop meaningful connections with a small group of mothers from SD61. One of the requests coming from these conversations is the desire for the Middle Eastern community to learn more about the Physical Health & Education curriculum. We are looking to host a Q&A session on this topic for Middle Eastern families this year.

In collaboration with the Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre (VIRCS), a series of after school sessions will be offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:45 to 5:30 until June 13 at the District NLC (Neighbourhood Learning Centre), located at Victoria High School.

Boxing Program

We are currently in discussions with 94Forward to continue with an after-school boxing program for high school students in the fall of 2024. This program is fully funded and takes place at Island Boxing at 831 Fisgard Street.

Girls Hockey Program

Youth 4 Hockey is looking to sponsor a hockey program for female high school students, with an emphasis on newcomers, in SD61.Due to the program schedule and transportation, this option will be for students at Spectrum and Reynolds secondary schools.

Use your ProD funds to take this self-paced course on how to support newcomer Immigrant and Refugee students in any classroom using the SIOP.

An important new resource, Anti-Racism: A Guide for Teachers, is now available. Developed by a team of B.C. IBPoC educators, this guide will give B.C. teachers additional tools and strategies for including anti-racism education in their teaching practices to help foster learning through an anti-racist lens to address discrimination and celebrate diversity.