The following is an overview of plans for 2022/2023 that will strengthen our programs and supports to ensure our students receive an education that focuses on the whole person in their pursuit of academic excellence.

Staffing and Structure

We would like to welcome the following people to new Specialist roles within the school for next year:

Ms. Bethany Wiebe will join St. Bon’s as the K-3 Literacy/Numeracy Specialist, as well as the K-6 Maker Space Project Learning Coordinator.

Ms. Wiebe will work directly with students and teachers in grades K-3 to ensure effective teacher-student ratios for enhancing reading, writing and numeracy development. Her presence in classrooms will facilitate increased 1-1 and small group engagement while fostering a teaching excellence approach to all classroom learning. Additionally, Ms. Wiebe will work with students and teachers in our new maker space to extend on classroom curriculum through experiments, inquiry learning and play.

Ms. Elizabeth Bruce will move into a new role next year as the 4-6 Literacy/Numeracy Specialist, as well as the K-6 Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Coordinator.

Ms. Bruce will work directly with students and teachers in grades 4-6 to enhance reading, writing and numeracy development. Her presence in classrooms will facilitate increased 1-1 and small group engagement while ensuring coordination of elementary programming and expectations as students move towards Junior High. In her SEL role, Ms. Bruce will work with students and teachers to intentionally target the development of essential social-emotional learning goals that will help foster the formation of independent learners.

Mr. Casey Roberts will move into a new role next year as the Math Specialist instructor for Grades 5 and 6.

Mr. Roberts will work directly with Grade 5 and 6 students in the classroom to deliver the Math curriculum. Mr. Roberts increasingly uses a workshop approach to Math that balances experiential learning with more traditional methods of math instruction. Having taught in the Junior High levels, Mr. Roberts will ensure an appropriate scaffolding of ability and mindset for elementary students preparing to transition to Junior High. Additionally, we have reserved slots in Mr. Roberts’ schedule as a Math Specialist for targeted student engagement and support.

Holland Hall

K-6 Staffing

Kindergarten – Ms. Follett

Grade 1 – Ms. Coffin

Grade 2 – Ms. Prior

Grade 3 – Ms. Carter

Grade 4 – Ms. Rowsell

Grade 5 – Ms. Goodridge

Grade 6 – Mr. Mandville

Music Specialist – Ms. Gatherall

K-6 Athletic Director/Gr. 4 Science – Mr. Brake

Gr. 5/6 Math Specialist – Mr. Roberts

K-3 Literacy/Numeracy Specialist & K-6 Maker Space Project Learning Coordinator – Ms. Weibe

4-6 Literacy/Numeracy Specialist & K-6 Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Coordinator – Ms. Bruce

Psychologist Consultant – Dr. Barry

Guidance Consultant – Ms. O’Neill

New Collaborative Learning/Team Teaching Slots

Holland Hall K-3

Increased exposure to different students and learning opportunities helps students to grow both academically and social-emotionally. In an effort to intentionally foster this growth, we have added three slots for “collaborative learning/team teaching” to our schedule. These slots are in addition to the core subject area slots for literacy and numeracy, and will be more cross-curricular in nature, much like our current SALLY Program with Dr. Jan Buley.

These slots will allow teachers from different grades to plan together, in collaboration with our specialist teachers Ms. Wiebe, Ms. Bruce and Mr. Roberts, as well as with Mr. Brake and Ms. Gatherall, to foster a different approach to learning. Students will have opportunity to learn and practice important social-emotional skills, as well as leadership and mentoring. These slots may take place in the new Maker Space, in the Outdoor Classroom, or even across a number of physical spaces within the school. Multiple teachers engaged in these slots means lower student-teacher ratios in which student growth can be targeted individually.

These slots will be for Grades K/1, Grades 1/2, and Grades 2/3. These combinations allow for new relationships and exposure that will help us teach students a broader range of social-emotional and academic skills.

Holland Hall 4-6

The Collaborative Learning/Team Teaching slots continue and evolve in Elementary. While each morning students in grades 4-6 will begin in their grade level homeroom class, on even days of our 7 day cycle (Days 2, 4 and 6), students will move from homeroom to cross-grade cohorts that will be together for the duration of the year. The cohorts will remain flexible and responsive to student needs and interests.

These cohorts will spend approximately 20 minutes engaged in tasks, choice work, or extended project-based learning that address essential learning skills that scaffold throughout Elementary, under the guidance of the Elementary teachers and Specialists.

All cohort work will be intentionally designed such that these learning opportunities will also be social-emotional opportunities during which students can form new relationships and build new skills essential for ongoing, independent learning. Multiple teachers engaged in these slots means lower student-teacher ratios in which student growth can continue to be targeted individually.

Cohort work will make use of the Maker Space, Outdoor Learning, and specifically designated learning spaces in Holland Hall. This will allow students to maintain the bonds and identity of their Grade Levels, while also benefiting from new groupings and associations across grade levels.

The Importance of Reflection – K-6

Each day in Holland Hall will now also end with a developmentally appropriate “Reflection Time” that will allow students to reflect on their daily experiences – whether in terms of academics or social-emotional experiences. This reflection time will help build the skills needed for discernment as students move through successive grades. It will also allow classes to reflect on their experiences in the Collaborative Learning/Team Teaching slots so that those can continually be designed to respond to student needs and interests.

Creating time for reflection is an essential feature in building our character as a Jesuit school. Reflecting on our experiences allows us to make choices for our next actions and to learn how to evaluate how we make our choices. Linking these reflections to our values ensures that we maintain the Character of our school.

Team Teaching/Support Slots

Having our Math Specialist deliver the Math curriculum in grades 5 and 6 also means that we free up those teachers to engage in other classrooms to share their expertise directly with students and other teachers. As needed, both Mr. Mandeville and Ms. Goodridge will engage in other classes to ensure lower student-teacher ratios for literacy and numeracy learning.

New Maker Space

A new maker space is being created and developed for Holland Hall. This new space will provide resources and opportunities so that students have available to them a wide assortment of tech and non-tech tools and machines that they might need to build, hack, fix, create or model solutions for just about any kind of project

The maker space will help our students to further develop creative, hands-on problem solving and foundational reasoning and build critical skills in fields such as science, technology, engineering, and math

We also have exciting changes happening in Grades 7-12. To see the plans we have in store please click HERE.

We are excited for these changes and the benefits they will bring for our students.