PRINCE ALBERT — The Specialized Support Classroom Project in St. John Community School has been a success after being implemented at the end of the previous school year and beginning of this school year.
A delegation from St. John outlined how the project helped students at Monday's regular meeting at the Prince Albert Catholic School Division Board of Education.
The classroom, which is called the IM (Independent Mindfulness) classroom and is open to students in Grade 1 to Grade 3, has led to fewer in-class disruptions and improved communication.
The delegation included teacher Annakah Ratt, principal Brock Skomorowski, current lead educational consultant Melissa Smith and coordinator of student achievement and assessment Armand Schellenberg.
The name Independent Mindfulness came from Schellenberg and the school staff because it describes what the room is trying to build. The IM room even has a series of hand gestures for each part of the mantra (IM Kind, IM Helpful, IM Strong and IM Awesome).
"The teachers and the staff at that school see a difference with students and it really shows you the value of teaching students those skills,” PA Catholic Education Director Lorel Trumier said. “It's not always in the curriculum in terms of learning different aspects. It's about educating the whole child, and this is really a good opportunity for us to see the impact of that.”
St. John Community School was selected for the project because it had an open classroom.
Whole classrooms were observed in their homeroom before starting intervention. The goal was to collect information on the number of disruptions from learning, time spent away from learning due to the disruption, the number of teacher reminders required before learning resumed, and observations related to the disruption.
The major barriers identified after observing students in the classroom were self-regulation and communication.
“Part of the objective from the Ministry was that we needed to collect data but then also it helped us guide the program in the direction that we needed to go,” Schellenberg said.
“For the purpose of our data collection, a disruption was when a student would distract another student from their learning.
“It all boiled down to the grand theme of problem-solving, but with self-regulation and with communication and those two ideas for the guiding principles of the intervention that we offer,” Smith added.
Students are identified for intervention in Grades 1 to 3. The students receive small group intervention once a day, five days a week. The class-wide supports include weekly class-wide goals, weekly reports and bi-weekly reports sent home with students.
The resources used in the IM classroom are already used in the school. They include Second Step, Zones of Regulation and the Expanding Expression Tool (EET).
At the start of each week, Ratt teaches a mini-lesson that focuses on a weekly behavioural goal as laid out in the Second Step Program, this is part of an evolution of the program this school year.
"What that looks like now is rather than having just pull-out sessions or small group support sessions, we're able to push Annakah into the classroom in a more significant manner,” Smith explained. “At the start of every week, she's able to deliver a mini-lesson to the entire class to
talk about the specialized support goals and deliver the specialized support language to the entire class.”
This whole class lesson is taught to all students in Grades 1 to 3. Each week Ratt sends out reports outlining the goal for the week and how it connects to the lessons in IM. Included in these reports are examples of common language to use with the students and an overview of what will be taught in IM that week.
The program showed a decrease in disruptions among Grades 1 and 2 students, with an increase in Grade 3, something Schellenberg attributed to Grade 3 students improving their ability to communicate. While disruptions increased, he said teachers were able to settle them quickly.
Before the IM there were 75 disruptions in Grade 1, 62 disruptions in Grade 1 and 2 combined classroom, 23 in Grade 2, and 41 in Grade 3. After the IM, there were 53 disruptions in Grade 1, 36 in Grade 1 and 2 combined, 19 in Grade 2, and 59 in Grade 3.
The combined average for all classrooms for disruptions was 50.25 before IM and 41.75 after.
"That Grade 3 class had a higher amount of students in that class that required the communication intervention more than the self-regulation,” he explained. “They were very quiet before IM, and then they started expressing themselves, so it is actually a positive.”
Even though there were more disruptions the class could get back on task more quickly he added.
IM also led to similar improvements in time off task and several on-task reminders.
The report states that students become more aware of their challenges and what they need to overcome them. Students are becoming skilled at identifying and solving their problems, communicating what they need to solve their problem, identifying their solutions and staying regulated.
The report states that distractions to learning are reduced and teachers can spend more time teaching and supporting learning.
The IM instruction also extends beyond the small group and spreads into the school.
St. John Community School is also home to the Mental Health Capacity Building pilot project and the two projects work together.
“There's students that were in my school last year that are still in my school that I haven't seen in the office this school year that were being sent down daily last year,” Skomorowski said. “They were being sent down daily because they were disrupting the teaching so much that the teacher just need to send them out for a little break.”
The project has also enhanced communication in the school and with families.
This is from the weekly report that outlines the goals for the week and bi-weekly packages shared with families.
The division received notice in January 2024 that they had funding for the project. In March 2024, senior administration, educational consultants and St. John administration met to plan and develop the program structure.
In April 2024, they began collecting data and students began to work in the IM Classroom. Post-intervention data was collected in June 2024 and shared with families and administration.
When the 2024-2025 school year began, the division assessed the results from the previous year. According to the report, the IM Classroom strengthens its reach to general education classrooms while continuing to provide small-group supports. The assessment and instructional practices are continuing for this school year.
During the throne speech after the election in 2024, the government announced an expansion of the program and Trumier hopes that it can continue.
“At the Throne speech. There was a commitment to having additional specialised programmes such as this pilot. Obviously, Prince Albert Catholic Schools is anxiously waiting to see if we're going to be in receipt of some of those programmes. We would like to because we've seen the benefits,” Trumier said.
