Alana Parsons 1

University of Calgary
Calgary, AB
January 9, 2018

Mrs. ANONYMOUS and Ms. ANONYMOUS

School Administrative Team
ANONYMOUS Elementary School
Calgary, AB

Dear Mrs. ANONYMOUS and Ms. ANONYMOUS:

I am excited to share my plan to advocate for Comprehensive School Health (CSH), with my

intent to launch in the grade 5/6 classroom. In regard to the Calgary Board of Education’s Three-

Year Plan (2017), it is our duty to “...identify and create the conditions for success for students as

unique learners and as members of their school and home communities.” (p. 2) The 2014

Handbook for Developing Healthy School Communities (2014) proposes a major CSH priority is

to create an environment ultimately supporting social-emotional learning; ensuring the safety and

security of every student (p. 3). The heart of my proposed project is to foster an open and safe

environment that recognizes positive student behaviour which I firmly believe will create

conditions for student success at ANONYMOUS Elementary.

For my proposed project, I would like to implement the strength-based S4 program that is

affiliated with the Calgary Police Service. The S4 program focuses on the strengths of each

student and positive behaviors, skills and characteristics in order to foster a safe and resilient

community. (Calgary Police Service, 2017) Implementing this program on a micro-classroom

level will directly address the social environment of the school while harmonizing with local

partnerships and services. Furthermore, I feel that this will indirectly but positively affect school

policy as well as the teaching and learning components of CSH. Overall, we would hope to see

the positive development of ANONYMOUS School’s CSH.

The proposed project is to initially take part in the grade 5/6 classrooms, then eventually

spread to every classroom in the school. The overall purpose of the project is to get students to
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understand the four different quadrants of the S4 circle and be able to apply them. The four

different quadrants are: significance, success, self-awareness and service. (Calgary Police

Service, 2017) The students should understand how to recognize each of the four cornerstones

within the actions of their classmates. I propose that the classroom is to be equipped with a

comment box and mini questionnaire sheets. When students recognize an action done by another

classmate that relates to one or more S4 cornerstone, they may go fill out an anonymous

comment and put it in the box. The comment sheet asks students to identify the name of the

observed student, which cornerstone they observed and what happened in the action observed.

During agenda time, at the end of each day, the teacher will take time to read out the S4

comments done by their classmates to recognize positive student.

We should see a direct increase in students’ social emotional learning (SEL), as this project

specifically focuses on the SEL competency of building relationship skills. This aspect of SEL

more specifically refers to the importance of communication, relationship-building and social

engagement as a means to increase student ability to establish and maintain healthy and

rewarding relationships (CASEL, 2018). Through this project, students will strengthen their

relationships by recognizing positive behaviors through this form of social engagement.

Furthermore, it is my belief that this project will further develop and foster cross curricular

competencies within the students at ANONYMOUS School. One cross-curricular competency is

for opportunities to be created to allow students to transform ideas into actions that benefit the

community. (Alberta Regional Consortia , 2017) I argue that students will learn how to recognize

positive behaviors within their classmates, which will in turn encourage such behaviors within

each student. These positive actions will be recognized, and arguably positively influence student

confidence. It is my hope that this will be transpired into the families and their communities.
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It is my duty as a pre-service teacher in the grade 5/6 classroom to initiate, organize and

further supervise the proposed project. If the proposed project is approved, I plan on recording

qualitative evidence directly relating to the positive effects that this project has on the grade 5/6

classroom. Lastly, I will design the box and the corresponding comment forms. I appreciate your

consideration for my above proposal for implementing a plan to promote Comprehensive School

Health at ANONYMOUS Elementary.

Sincerely,

Alana Parsons
Grade 5/6 Pre-Service Teacher
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Bibliography

Alberta Regional Consortia . (2017). Cross Curricular Competencies. Retrieved from Alberta

Education.

Calgary Board of Education . (2017). Calgary Board of Education Three-Year Education Plan

2017-20. Retrieved from http://www.cbe.ab.ca/FormsManuals/Three-Year-Education-

Plan.pdf

Calgary Police Service. (2017). Start Smart, Stay Safe. Retrieved from S4 Basics:

http://startsmartstaysafe.ca/

CASEL. (2018). Core SEL Competencies . Retrieved January 6, 2018 , from CASEL: Inspiring

Hearts, Inspiring Minds : https://casel.org/core-competencies/

University of Alberta School of Public Health . (2014). Developing Healthy School Communities

Handbook . Edmonton: University of Alberta .