Blog Posts

Student voice is an initiative started at Abbotsford Senior Secondary in 2021. Student Voice hosts students from all different backgrounds that encompass the school’s demographics. These students meet every Thursday to delve into school and community-based topics that they identify. Previous topics have included rewriting the school dress code, organizing a better way for grade 9 orientation, and Indigenizing school announcements.  

Student success is a focus of the Abbotsford School District. The desire for student success permeates through all levels, from senior management to building administrators, classroom and support teachers, education assistants, and students. At Abbotsford Traditional School (ATS), we have a reputation for preparing our students for the expectations and rigours of university–academic student success. This is one kind of student success. Another kind of student success is accomplishing academic achievement in parallel to student well-being.

The teaching and support staff at Rick Hansen are actively pursuing their commitment to student achievement and understand that getting a pulse on the mindset of the current teaching climate is an essential factor in this pursuit. As every teacher in our school community is trained in Inquiry-Based Learning, they know that IBL is the best vehicle to not only hear from as many of their colleagues as possible but also to create in-house ideas, strategies, and solutions for everyone can buy into.

When asked to reflect on a classroom, most of us will envision rows of desks facing a blackboard where a teacher stands. For decades, this image represents the learning space for millions of students and yet excludes how we learn naturally and daily in non-school environments. True knowing and understanding mean being able to transfer knowledge from one setting to another.

In May this year, six Grade 11 WJ Mouat students participated in a Mental Health Forum hosted by the Abbotsford School District. They were tasked with reviewing the YDI (Youth Development Index) survey results for WJ Mouat and to come up with an actionable plan to help improve student well-being and mental health at their school.

The opportunity to bring the Social Justice 12 course back to Rick Hansen Secondary was an important goal for educator Sandy Gill. Placing students in the centre of their learning is strongly valued by Ms.Gill. Thus, entering the social justice arena, it was imperative that the students learn about equity in an equitable setting. The students were provided opportunities to explore critical topics driven by their inquiry questions.

Over the past school year, the staff at Rick Hansen have been hard a work creating course-based Learning Maps.

In this week's installment of our Equity for Humanity Project - take a quick peek at the work of various educators around the district at different levels as they tackle what Equity means in their brave space. 

Over the last year, educators across the Abbosford School District have been part of the equity discussion.  It is our pleasure to highlight their work in our Equity for Humanity Project.   The word "equity" has many different connotations when applied to the framework of education.  It has been our joy to witness teachers entering into brave spaces and navigating the challenge of providing equity with the classroom and beyond.  

Take a quick peek at what we've been working on.... 

Kudos to our own Pari Khanna, Grade 11, who took on the community issue of Abbotsford Homeless in her leadership PBL unit.  As as result of her driving question, she put together 55 care packages for the Salvation Army.  We'd like to thank the local business community for answering her calls and donating merchandise and funds in order to supoport the  project.