A Community of Enthusiastic Learners

"Be nice to each other. It's really all that matters." - Dawn Hochsprung

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March 30, 2018

CES Families, As we walk through the halls and visit classrooms, we feel the sense of community that teachers and our staff work hard to build from the first day of school. The CES community’s commitment to providing a supportive learning environment is apparent in our school-wide motto “Soar to Success at CES: A community that C.A.R.E.S”. A strong school community is so valuable especially during sad and difficult times. We couldn’t be more proud of the ways families, students, staff, and our Board of Education supported our kindergarten classroom this past month. In this month’s News from the Nest, we would like to share some of the ways we create a supportive personalized learning environment. When we create a caring community, there are positive impacts on peer-peer and teacher-student relationships. Students learn to self-regulate and this improves their engagement and academic performance. Some of the strategies that have proven to be effective are providing growth-mindset feedback, clarity, routines, and modeling. Feedback involves communicating with students about their understanding of content, their interactions with others, and their performance when completing tasks. Teachers connect student effort with outcome and encourage growth. Here are some examples of ways we create a supportive personalized learning environment:

Class meetings: We use these meetings to foster social skills and behaviors such as how to greet others. They also help to build rapport and support by allowing students to share things that are important to them. Some examples of the social skills we practice are taking turns, greeting others, sitting safely, asking questions, complimenting peers, and making connections to others.

Written statements of beliefs: Classrooms develop an agreed upon set of rules and beliefs that are written in positive ways to build consistency and independence. Examples include treating others the way we want to be treated, walking safely, listening while others are talking, and using materials correctly.

Hopes and Dreams: We discuss what children hope to learn and be able to do during this school year. This helps keep everyone focused on what we can do each day to accomplish our goals and learn new things.

Self-monitoring and control strategies: We assist children in developing perspective taking and self-regulation. Young learners often have difficulty understanding why something happened or why someone said what they said. It’s important to provide time and model ways students can self assess and reflect on their feeling about a situation so that they can make a good decision.

We appreciate your partnership as we help our learners develop self-regulatory skills and independence in both the classroom and society. Connections to family and school are so critical. All of our learners are a part of the CES community and we work hard to be inclusive, caring, and open to new learning. Your partners in education, Judy O’Meara Linda Rhodes Principal Assistant Principal

News from the Nest Colchester Elementary School

Upcoming Events

April 5th CES PTO Meeting

6:00-8:30pm

April 9th Kindergarten Story Time

11:30-12:00pm

April 12th Incoming Kindergarten

Orientation 4:45-6:15pm

April 16th-20th

No School April Recess

Our School Rules

Take Care of Yourself Take Care of Each Other Take Care of Our School

A Community of Enthusiastic Learners

A Supportive Personalized Learning

Environment