Identifying an Instructional Focus to Shape the School-Wide Approach

Frank M. Silvia Elementary Fall River, MA

Frank M. Silvia Elementary School in Fall River, Massachusetts, became an expanded learning time school in 2007. Serving nearly 650 students in grades PK-5, the school staff has continuously refined their approach to implementing additional learning time and has achieved remarkable results in increasing student proficiency.

Frank M. Silvia Elementary School (2009-2010) Principal Denise Ward School Schedule 7:30 AM 3:40 PM Grades Served PK 5 Number of Students 637 Performance 2010 MCAS Results

In 2008, the Silvia School embarked upon a comprehensive instructional improvement effort. To lead the effort, the principal formed an instructional leadership team (ILT)comprised of the principal and assistant principal, a team leader from each grade-level teacher team, special Frank M. Silvia Elementary Schools education teachers and instructional Instructional Focus Statement coaches. She also formed a smaller data team devoted to the examination All staff and students at Frank M. Silvia School will engage in a of school and student-level data. coordinated whole-school effort to have all Silvia School students As a first step in their work together these teams led the Silvia school faculty in a careful analysis of student results on teacher-developed assessments and the most recent Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). Through this process , the Silvia faculty were able to home in on the need to help students strengthen their reading comprehension skills and decided to adopt a school-wide instructional focus on improving students reading comprehension across the curricula.

show growth in reading comprehension and the ability to demonstrate knowledge through writing across the curricula through the implementation of a set of shared practices in literacy instruction.

Frank M. Silvia Schools School-wide Best Practices Core instructional time will be dedicated to work on reading comprehension and the demonstration of knowledge through writing in every classroom, every day. This instruction on reading comprehension will include the use of T-charts as a school-wide graphic organizer.

This instruction will include read-alouds by every Anchored by this clear school-wide teacher...in every classroom...every day focus, the ILT and data teams began to help each grades teacher teams set student achievement goals; ensure that ILT, collaborative planning and professional development meetings remained focused on the focus; and worked with staff to post student data inside classrooms and grade-level data boards in the schools more public areas. These steps carefully laid the foundation for the instructional improvement work that has followed, including the implementation of a set of School-wide Best Practices and enhanced common planning and professional development meetings, all driven by Silvias instructional focus.

National Center on Time & Learning 24 School Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02108 www.timeandlearning.org

Implementing a School-wide Instructional Focus Once the school community adopted the focus on reading comprehension, the instructional leadership team set out to actively support teachers in their efforts to develop students reading comprehension skills and strategies during the 2009 2010 school year. Recognizing that faculty could benefit from a common starting point, the ILT selected Comprehension Connections by Tanny McGregor, a reading comprehension resource book that could guide professional development efforts and distributed it to all school staff. The ILT then planned and facilitated the standard monthly staff meetings, organizing each meeting around a select book chapter and strategy. ILT members, or teacher volunteers who had been identified as particularly skilled at using the featured technique in the classroom, would introduce the strategy and model ways to present and teach it to students, sometimes incorporating examples of student work. Over the course of the next month, all teachers would use this common strategy in their classrooms, using the weekly grade-level team meetings to discuss challenges to implementation, share suggestions, and receive additional support from team leaders. This month-long cycle would culminate in a Gallery Walk, where teachers were given the opportunity to present how they had implemented the chosen strategy in their classrooms, display artifacts of student work, and share any progress made. This new approach effectively transformed the full staff meetings from sessions devoted to administrative discussions into robust professional development opportunities. At the same time, it ensured that collaborative planning meetings had clear goals and objectives, with an aim toward improving instruction and building teacher expertise around the schools reading comprehension focus. Continuous Improvement through School-wide Instructional Focus Process The school community was galvanized by the instructional focus work and the refinement of teacher practice afforded by the redesigned staff and collaborative planning meetings. Soon teachers realized that the assessment instruments used to determine student progress were inadequate and subsequently developed reading comprehension assessments derived from the well-regarded Fountas and Pinnell benchmark system, along with rubrics to evaluate student work. Using this new assessment data, teachers recognized that students had developed reading comprehension mastery and a bank of comprehension strategies but were now struggling to demonstrate that knowledge. This school year, that realization has sparked an expansion of Silvias original school-wide focus on developing comprehension to also include helping students to communicate that comprehension through the written word (commonly interpreted as an ability to successfully answer open response questions). Silvia Elementary Schools staff have fully embraced their instructional focus, using it to guide a reflective continuous improvement process wherein faculty routinely assess progress toward stated goals and identify areas of improvement, both in the near-term and for the following school year. Communicating a School-wide Instructional Focus Communication has been key to Silvias instructional focus success. The school-wide focus is posted throughout the school facility in both its adult-friendly form (see text box) and in student-friendly terms: I read, I think, I question, I write. The focus has formed the basis of the schools most important regularly scheduled meetings for over two years. Most recently, the school faculty has developed a monthly newsletter for its parents and the broader school community and the school-wide instructional focus is a cornerstone of the publications content each month.

National Center on Time & Learning 24 School Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02108 www.timeandlearning.org

Enjoying the Benefits of a School-wide Instructional Focus Silvia Elementary School has begun reaping the benefits of its coherent instructional focus approach. The school staffs early willingness to set SMARTe (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely, for every student) goals has had a significant impact, motivating teachers at every level to be very data-focused, consistently paying close attention to progress and improvement. Strong teacher leadership is demonstrated throughout the school community and this leadership is cultivated by the instructional leadership team. Student goal-setting has become an increasingly important component of Silvia Elementary Schools focus-centered success, with students buying into and taking more ownership over their own achievement, particularly as it relates to reading comprehension and writing. Student results on Massachusetts statewide standardized assessments reflect these developments (see graphs). In each grade level, students have shown marked improvement in the annual ELA MCAS since the instructional focus was implemented. By contrast, during this time proficiency rates have stagnated across the district for the same grade levels. The instructional leadership team has also earned a positive reputation district-wide for its thoughtful approach to supporting teacher practice and Silvia Elementarys ILT has hosted other schools, at the local districts request, in order to model and share its best practices. Likewise, the schools methods for teaching elementary school students how to competently and confidently answer open-response questions are now being adopted by all other elementary schools in the district.

80 70 60 % Proficient/Advanced 50 40

ELA Achievement at Silvia Elementary

ELA Proficiency 2008-2010 3rd-5th Grades Silvia Students Compared to District Average
Silvia School 60 55 Fall River District Average 58 53 45

2008 % Proficient 71 2009 50 56 55 2010

50 45 40 35 30 25 20

30 20 10 0 3rd Grade 47 48 34 49

54

35.6

35.6

35

4th Grade

5th Grade

2008

2009

2010

National Center on Time & Learning 24 School Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02108 www.timeandlearning.org