Greetings West Dover Families

Each year we identify a number of areas we would like to improve at our school. These goals are focused on literacy, numeracy, and well-being. This year our literacy goal is 'Phonic decoding and phonological awareness skills will improve'. Phonic decoding is a fundamental reading skill - visibly, phonic decoding looks like students sounding out letters in words and understanding that some letter combinations make new sounds - for example, the letters c and h independently have their own sound but when put together they make a new sound. This year our math goal relates to 'representation of numbers'. This is a fundamental math skill for elementary students - the idea that numbers can be represented in a variety of ways including visually using blocks, numerically using a symbol, or verbally through explaining what a number is. We also have a wellbeing for learning goal - this year we are working with an organization called Everactive Schools to build resiliency in students. Resliency is the skill of being able to use appropriate strategies when we experience disappointment, or when we feel upset about something. Each of these goal areas were chosen based on student achievement data or survey data with students. It is important that you know that each of these goal areas has measures and that we will report on our improvement to parents in November of each school year.

This coming week is the monthly school council meeting at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, April 10 in the Learning commons. All parents/guardians are welcome to attend.

Looking forward to another fantastic week of learning.

Roy Strum, Principal