Setting a Course for Enhancing Belonging and Literacy

Over the past two years, Maple Lane’s school goal has been to create a school community where diversity is celebrated, and students have a high sense of belonging. In 2025-26, we will continue with belonging as a goal, with an additional focus on enhancing literacy skills and fostering a deeper joy for reading.

Belonging

Maple Lane originally chose belonging as a focus because recent student surveys (2023/24 Student Learning Survey and 2022/23 MDI Survey) indicated student sense of belonging to be slightly below district average. A survey of all Grade 3-7 students in the Spring of 2025 showed a more positive trend, with students at Maple Lane being higher than district average in two key categories, “Feel Belonging” and “Feel Welcome” (see Figure 1 below). This upward trend has encouraged our school to continue to work on belonging. Roughly 6% of students viewed their sense of belonging as negative and just below 3% had a negative response to feeling welcome. This year, we plan to survey students through focus groups to find out more about why some students do not feel like they belong at school. We will continue to work with our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and with outside consultants to put practices in place to increase student sense of belonging within the school.

Actions 2025-26 (Belonging):

• Focus Group: In the Fall, we plan to survey students through focus groups to find out more about why some students do not feel like they belong at school.
• EDI Committee: We will continue to work with our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and with RSD consultants to put practices in place to increase student sense of belonging within the school. Information from the focus group will help guide our actions.
• Belonging Survey: In the Spring of 2026, we will conduct the District Belonging Survey to compare data with the survey from 2025.

Figure 1 - District Belonging Survey – Spring 2025

Literacy

Maple Lane has added literacy as a key focus for the 2025-26 school year. During staff meetings, professional development sessions and class reviews, teachers at Maple Lane have anecdotally reported that students need support with reading comprehension and vocabulary development. They are also curious about whether their current students have the same joy for reading that previous cohorts have shown. Data from the June 2025 Written Learning Updates show that 90% of students are proficient or developing in English Language Arts (ELA) and 5% are emerging (See Figure 2 below). The numbers improve to 92% and 1.4%, respectively, when Level 1 and 2 student data is removed. We believe there is room for improvement and our teaching staff would like to see more students achieving proficient and extending in ELA. We would also like to foster a greater joy for reading among our students. We will draw on the following curricular competencies from the ELA curriculum:

• Language and story can be a source of creativity and joy
• Exploring stories and other texts helps us understand ourselves and make connections to others and to the World

Our literacy goal aligns well with our theme of belonging. We know that exploring stories and texts helps us understand ourselves and make connections with the World around us.

Figure 2 – ELA Proficiencies - June 2025

Actions 2025-25 (Literacy):

• Whole School Reading Assessment: In the Fall of 2025, all classes will conduct the Richmond Formative Reading Assessment to get baseline data on student literacy skills. This information will help direct our course of action. When we conduct the assessment again in the Spring, we will be able to see the progress that has been made.
• Professional Learning: During Professional Development Days, Maple Lane teachers will engage in learning that will target areas of literacy that need the greatest focus (as indicated by the reading assessment).
• Collaboration: Teachers will engage in collaboration within the staff over the course of the school year. Teacher consultants from the RSD will help support this process.
• Library Connections: As the hub of the school, the library will be instrumental in fostering a love for books and reading. The library will be opened additional days at lunchtime for students and there will be “Noisy Reading” mornings when families will be invited to join their children to read before the school day starts.