Our school is embarking on determining a new school goal.  Using an inquiry based-process called the Spirals of Inquiry, our staff is seeking to gain clarity on what is going on for our learners.  The purpose of the spiral of inquiry is to make a difference in outcomes for our learners. 

While the stages in our spiral overlap, paying attention to each aspect is critical in achieving the greatest benefit for all learners.   At every stage, we ask ourselves three important questions:  

• What’s going on for our learners?  
• How do we know? and  
• Why does this matter?  

The first two questions prompt our staff to constantly check that learners are at the heart of what they do, and that all decisions are based on thoughtful evidence.  We are, therefore, scanned our learners over the the month of May using carefully selected key questions.  

What is scanning? 

Scanning: What’s going on for our learners? Many people within a school community have opinions about what is going on for learners. Scanning is all about collecting a variety of rich evidence about what is really taking place. Our staff will gather and consider useful information in key areas of learning and social emotional well-being using surveys and interviews.   Our intention is to more fully understand the degree to which students feel emotionally connected to adults in their learning environment, and the degree to which they fully understand the key learning goals is critically important in scanning.  

On our June 29 Professional Development Day, our staff will be using information from the scan to identify an area of focus for our future school goal by exploring several questions:

• What caught our attention during the scanning phase?
• Can we clarify strengths as well as clarifying challenges?
• Where will we concentrate our energies in order to make a big and lasting difference for our learners? 

A brief description of how to Scan shared with staff, recorded by Ms. Ludwig: