Welcome to Monday - Vancouver Technical Secondary School

The first full day of work for the study group started with an early morning start, leaving a mist enshrouded Vancouver to head on over to Vancouver Technical Secondary School (Van Tech). A 25 minute drive from the hotel through the Eastside of the city - an area of higher urban deprivation that is supported through numerous charities offering accommodation for women. The YMCA and other refuges for the homeless were seen during our drive to the school. On arrival we were met by the Principal David Derpak who had organised an incredibly busy and composite programme for the day.

The school was originally based in downtown Vancouver and building on the current site began in 1927. During the 1940's girls were admitted to the school who were offered courses in what was then the true vocational nature of the school, I.e. needlework and home economics. In the 1970's the school developed and adopted a fully comprehensive model. A common curriculum is delivered in British Columbia. During this period of change the school has managed to retain and continue to develop its technical curriculum. The school is currently the largest inner city school in Vancouver with approximately 1650 students on roll.

Students transfer from 9 main Elementary schools. There are 56 different languages spoken in the school, of which 70% are Asian in origin (mostly Chinese). 280 students have special educational needs and Van Tech offers 12 specialised programmes to meet the diverse needs of the learning community. The school has excellent sporting facilities with a number of gymnasia, weights room, athletic track and has recently invested $2million (Canadian) in an all-weather pitch. A number of students are now attending from Eastern bloc countries as well as Africa. Van Tech has the second highest proportion of aboriginal First Nation students in the city (140) but has the highest rates of graduation. The school has the following guiding principles:

We are committed to:

• Developing the diverse talents and gifts of all within the community
• Providing accessible public education
• Making our school safe and welcoming
• Fostering the growth of social awareness and responsibility
• Serving our extended family of schools

Timetable

The school operates a 2 day timetable. Each day consists of 4*80 minute periods, this is common across Vancouver. These are broken down into core and elective subjects. Core subjects (Maths, English, Science, MFL and Social Studies) and electives are taught over a rolling 2 day period. Some electives are delivered over a semester, others over the course of a full academic year. The group felt that the benefits of timetabling in this way were that students were immersed into a much deeper learning experience and rates of progress would be higher as a direct consequence of this approach being adopted. This also results in classroom teachers having fewer classes to manage, allowing them to develop strong professional relationships with students. Lessons are shortened to 60 minute periods on Friday, with school finishing at 1340. There is currently 10 minute transit time between lessons, this is normally 5 minutes but current building (seismic) work has necessitated this change.

The 2 day timetable also helps distribution of teaching staff within Vancouver, with staff being able to be deployed to different schools for Day 1 / Day 2 which provides them with effective measures to counter shortages in specific subjects areas.

BASE

Following the clear guidelines of social responsibility:

• Respect for oneself
• Respect for others
• Responsibility for all

A great deal of developmental work has taken place over the past six years, the notion of social responsibility and taking control of the building has been important in seeing the development of this inter-state school that had a jaded reputation. School is now the safest in Vancouver as a result of all the hard work that has been done and positive community links with the Police and the Youth Team Activities Co-ordinator. Assembly programme in place, students are not supervised during this time (upto 650) apart from the speaker and guests. The BASE (Building A Safer Environment) programme has been put in place to aid transition through the use of well developed peer mentoring. Two grade 11/12 mentors are responsible for 25 grade 8 students. These mentors go through an intensive training course during the summer holidays to prepare them as mentors and then they shadow their group of students for the academic year. The BASE programme has an HQ called the BASE SPACE, which is used to have BASE lunches attended by grade 8 students to create their own identity with their mentors through playing games, chatting and meeting their leaders. Information about rates of student progress is shared with the mentors so they can build informal support mechanisms. BASE mentors also work hard developing links with parents, resulting in parental meetings taking place with mentors. The school prides itself on positively developing young adults.

COUNSELLING

Each grade within the school has a designated counsellor, these operate in a similar fashion to Heads of Year within the UK pastoral system but the main difference is that they hold professionally recognised counselling qualifications. It was interesting to note that the counsellors do not get involved with discipline issues; these are passed to school administration (Principal and Vice-Principals who do not have a teaching commitment). Individual teachers can manage discipline in their classroom in whatever way they see fit, there is no consistent whole school approach.

REFLECTION

One thing that immediately became apparent was the abundance of space on this 20 acre site. Specialist classrooms were very large and well equipped but the resources did not appear to be fully utilised during class based activities. Movement around the school was excellent due to clear expectations being set by the administration as well as wide corridors (12 ft). Full length lockers were recessed into walls and accessible to all. Very little display of students work to celebrate their success was evident across the school apart from the Social Sciences department. The school was originally set up as a trade school and traditional concepts have shown that they still have an important place within the curriculum and societal needs. The hairdressing salon was phenomenal - the layout was as one would see in a commercial working environment, students worked in this environment as they would in the work place. The students take bookings from staff, students and the community and run this as a business, with generated income being ploughed back into resourcing the course.

Extremely good relationships were evident throughout the school at all levels. Few barriers were observed that would compromise learning. A flexible dress code reduces the tensions between staff and students, but does not necessarily enhance a positive learning environment. In some classes some students were evidently off task, with no intervention from the class teacher.

Compared to UK schools there was a distinct lack of technology to enrich learning and teaching. No classrooms were set up to use emerging technologies apart from the graphics facilities. Electronic registration is undertaken but is based on OMR technology that does not see information available to staff real time as sheets are processed at the end of the working day. However, an SMS based service is used to inform parents of session absences. The impact of this is limited due to data not being available earlier in the day.

A number of supply teachers were in place and many doors were closed to visitors. Some classes visited clearly showed both teachers and students marking time.