School Plan
To promote a culture of care and inclusivity for all students, especially those that are members of marginalized communities.
How do we foster a school culture that confronts and eliminates racism and focuses on acceptance, empathy and understanding?
Claremont is a bustling high school that offers a wide variety of academic and extracurricular opportunities for a school population that averages close to 1150 students and 100 staff members per year. The Claremont school community has a keen sense of school pride and a collective focus on inspiring students to achieve their best, both inside and outside the classroom. At the same time, we remain passionately committed to ensuring that all students feel welcomed, supported, safe and positively engaged. As a school community, we must work together to confront racism in all its forms, help build a strong culture of positivity and inclusivity, and celebrate our differences. As a school staff, we must improve those processes currently in place that help students connect with each other and with the wide variety of programs, clubs, and teams available in our building. Students who connect quickly and ‘find their niche’ often enjoy a more positive school experience, which in turn increases their chances of being successful as a learner. In our greater school community that includes parents and caregivers, we must also work to encourage open dialogue that leads to growth and a greater level of acceptance of others.
We are confident that a school-wide focus on acceptance and understanding will have a positive effect on the mental health and wellness of our learners, and it will help produce citizens who are more socially and globally aware that their comments and actions can have lasting impacts on others.
This goal and focused inquiry question aligns directly to our district strategic priority in Mental Health and Wellness. Additionally, our intended approaches are deeply connected to First Peoples Principles of Learning.
Student Sessions with 'One Love Consulting' - 322 responses G9-12
Ministry Student Learning Survey
Ministry Student Learning Survey
Ministry Student Learning Survey
First Peoples Principles of Learning
The Culture of Caring and Inclusivity Goal needs to ensure that:
- Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place);
- Learning involves patience and time; and
- Learning requires exploration of one’s identity.
- Encouraging new students to make a connection with at least two adults each year and become a member of at least one club or one team, even if they lack prior experience;
- Creating a school wide house system based on the four elements (Fire, Water, Earth, and Air) where ALL students and staff belong and are grouped only by birthdate; points can be accumulated through participation in fun competitions that focus on working with and getting to know others;
- Listening to the voices and ideas from our students, especially those who are new to our building, shared with other District schools like our Individual Learning Centre (ILC) or our South Island Distance Education School (SIDES), or are members of marginalized communities;
- Running a Leadership class outside of the timetable that is student led and helps plan and promote events around the school;
- Supporting the student led creation of our first-ever BIPOC club that meets monthly and will soon take a leadership role in organizing future discussions and events focused on dismantling racism;
- Ensuring that our school programming and methods of assessment meet the needs of our diverse student body, including offering more courses focused on teaching Indigenous content and surveying students regularly each year to find out what needs to be changed or offered;
- Engaging students and staff in meaningful anti-racism work, including group presentations, live and interactive surveys, and professional development; and
- Teaming with our Parent Advisory Council.
Over the 2023-24 year, we will track progress on our initiatives identified in this year's plan. More specifically:
- We feel that there have been definite improvements in our collective level of acceptance and understanding as a school population, but we still have much work to do;
- We have instituted a recurring special event three times a year (December, March, and May) in the form of a school-wide Spartan Celebration to recognize a wide variety of student accomplishments and celebrate the diversity that exists within our building; and
- We are consciously taking the time to listen to students, to hear their feedback and develop an understanding of their experiences as a student at Claremont, and to act on their suggestions and feedback by making changes in our programming and school processes where necessary.
Summary learning, based on evidence gathered over the year, will provide us with key learnings to guide next steps for the 2024-25 school year and beyond.
