Students in the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division are doing well in the mid-year academic report, and have responded positively to being back in school since September.
Superintendent Terry Jordens presented a report on the academic student data for the 2020-21 school year to the Holy Family board of trustees at their March board meeting, held via Zoom on Wednesday evening.
The report covered three main areas, including readiness of kindergarten students for entering their elementary school education; progress in reading, writing and math for Grades 1-9 students; and engagement of Grades 4-9 students in their school.
For school readiness, the objective set out by the Education ministry is that 90 per cent of kindergarten students will be ready to enter Grade 1 next year, according to the Early Years assessment.
As of mid-year, 67 per cent of kindergarten have been assessed as ready to move on, with 90 per cent being the year-end target, said Jordens, noting this is one of the lowest numbers for this assessment in the past seven years.
Broken down, students are 77 per cent ready with gross motor skills; 80 per cent ready with fine motor skills; 88 per cent ready in language and communication; 61 per cent with cognitive skills; 81 per cent with social skills and approaches to learning; and 87 per cent with awareness of self and their environment.
Compared to other school divisions in the province, Holy Family is one of the top divisions for this mid-year number, noted Jordens, with the provincial average at 59 per cent.
In reading skills, the Holy Family students in Grades 1-8 overall are at 51 per cent of reaching the year-end grade level, and for writing, Holy Family is at 71 per cent for Grades 1-9 students writing at or above their grade level.
Jordens pointed out that Grade 8 students are at 87 per cent reaching their grade level or higher in writing, which is the highest score in the last four years.
In math, Grades 1-9 students are at 82 per cent of their grade level achievement, which is above the year-end provincial target of 80 per cent of students achieving at their grade level.
The report touched on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students and how they feel about being in school again, after the schools were locked down and closed a year ago from mid-March to the end of June.
Students in Grades 4-9 were asked to indicate on a scale of 1 to 10 how COVID makes them feel, with 1 indicating “sad” and 10 indicating “happy”. Overall, the highest number of students (24 per cent) marked down 5, halfway between happy and sad, while in Grades 7-9, 19 per cent were on the “sad” end of the spectrum, and 13 per cent at 5.
Overall, the students said they felt their school kept them safe from COVID, their school prevents the spread of COVID, and they had access to technology for remote learning. Also, the majority of students felt comfortable going back to school, said Jordens.
In relation to Deep Learning, 43 per cent of students were able to explain how technology improves their world, environments and cultural knowledge, and can explain how technology makes their world better.
About 46 per cent can think about how to find a solution when they have a difficult task and can work through any challenge and help others to do the same.
“We are seeing the hard work of our staff and the effects of having supplemental staff available,” said Jordens.
Education director Gwen Keith agreed, saying that Holy Family had “the gift of additional staffing this year” which greatly helped them get through this past year under COVID-19 restrictions.
