Blog Posts

Dear Families,

Jayde and Skyla are twins in grade 5 who started school at McMillan in Kindergarten. The girls have a designation, due to cerebral palsy, and are confined to wheelchairs. They were nonverbal when they started school, and their learning and growth over the past six years has been remarkable to watch. Even more inspiring, though, has been watching them grow in their relationships with their peers.  I sat down with Jayde, Skyla and several of their friends to talk about their learning journeys as they get ready to move on to middle school.

As a school, Godson has collectively invested in embedding Indigenous culture throughout our programming. In addition, we are fortunate to have a cultural Indigenous Support Worker, Chandra Antone, who maintains her steadfast devotion to bettering the school culture and celebrating Indigenous ways of life, culture, and knowledge.

At Margaret Stenersen Elementary School, there is a big and beautiful tree that some people want to cut down. The tree is a cedar and I LOVE IT!!! It is peaceful and I do not want it cut down. There are lots of trees at our school but this is the biggest. You are going to break our school’s heart. So many students play there. It is an old-growth tree and it holds all the school’s secrets. - Arija J., Grade 4

At Kandal, we are committed to strengthening our family partnerships in our school community. It’s no secret the more parents are involved in their children’s lives, both at home and school, the more they will be in the ‘know’ about how best to support their children. To this end, our kindergarten and grade 1 teachers and our English Language Learners (ELL) teachers initiated the “Parents as Partners” program.

Keeping the district’s focus on equity in mind, the Dr. Thomas A. Swift Elementary school community has taken on a small project of our own. Together with a couple of other elementary schools, we are using picture books to dive into topics of diversity and equity.

In our school district's four-year strategic plan, we have targeted improved early learning as a means of impacting student success. At Mathxwí Elementary, all primary classrooms have committed their year to explore practical ways to improve early literacy learning.

Noticing a shift in literacy instruction across the district? Wonder what is going on in the classroom down the hall?  

We walk into our schools each day and meet with faces, a multitude of beautiful faces behind which there are stories, personalities, interests, skills, hopes and values. And each day, we are lucky enough to have these children share pieces and layers of themselves in what might seem like surface-level interactions. A welcoming smile can draw someone in and engage them in conversation, and taking some time to listen to a child's story gives insight into their identity and, in turn, gives them the confidence they need to share with others.

The Abbotsford School District's Early Years learning team has been working to ensure that as many children and families have access to early learning support throughout our community. The following services and programs are currently available: