The Westmoreland Elementary School Way
Getting Better or Worse.....But Never Staying the Same
by Gary Glendening
May 14, 2008
One belief held by staff members at
Westmoreland Elementary School is that nothing stays the
same. The school is either getting better or worse in
providing the best education for students, but never staying the
same.
With this belief in mind, Westmoreland
Elementary School will be piloting three new initiatives next
school year. The first will be Individualized Summer School
Instruction, which will be implemented this summer. The
second and third programs, Recess before Lunch and Live LifeSkills
will begin with the 2008-09 school year.
The traditional way of teaching summer school has always been to
follow the same model of teaching often used during the regular
school term. That is, a large number students being taught by
a single teacher. Since the purpose of summer school is to
work with students with specific needs, traditional summer school
has not always been successful. Individualized Summer School
instruction will differ in that each student will receive “one on
one” instruction from a teacher. Each summer school teacher
will know exactly what each summer school student needs to learn,
and both teacher and student will have each others sole
attention. Hopefully, this method of teaching summer school
will provide for better student learning and progress.
Most elementary schools have students go to lunch and then
recess. If you were to ask why lunch and recess are scheduled
this way, the honest answer might be, “because that’s the way it’s
always been done.” But, is it the best way for
students? Recent research would indicate it probably
isn’t. Many studies suggest that students don’t take the time
to eat their lunch, knowing that they can go to recess, if they
hurry. Hurrying, and not eating all of their lunch can cause
students to leave many of the important nutrients provided by lunch
in the trash. The thought of recess also causes many students
to “gulp down” lunch as fast as they can, which can lead to stomach
problems. From an academic standpoint, valuable teaching time
is lost each day waiting for students to “calm down” after coming
back into the classroom from recess. Going to recess then
lunch should allow students to eat at a more relaxed pace and
additionally allow them to go back to class, ready to
learn.
Westmoreland Elementary School takes pride in teaching the whole
student, which means teaching not only academics, but also life
skills. We believe that our students must not only be
prepared for their future academically, but must also know and
practice life skills such as initiative, responsibility, caring,
cooperation, problem solving, organization, pride, and effort to
name a few. The plan next year is to give students a simple
way, using a short amount of time to practice or Live
LifeSkills. All students will have the opportunity to Live
LifeSkills next year by helping to clean our school.
Knowing that schools either get better or worse, but don’t stay the
same, guides the Westmoreland Elementary School staff in looking
for ways to provide a better education for our students. We
believe that the initiatives above will do just that.
