Each year, teachers, principals and parents in every school in British Columbia talk about how to enhance student learning, to make the educational experience of our students the best it can be.  We look for evidence in students' conversations, in their behaviour and attitudes, and in the many ways they represent their thinking.

McNeely prides itself on being a very welcoming and community-oriented school, where students and their families feel safe and have a strong sense of belonging.  Convincing evidence of this can be found in students' responses in the annual Ministry of Education Survey.  Parents have expressed similar opinions about the school's culture and tone during PAC meetings, monthly Tea and Talk sessions with the principal, at the Welcome Back BBQ and the Winter concert.  On recent professional development days, teachers have participated in some appreciative inquiry and created the new school motto:  Kathleen McNeely, a place where kind and curious minds grow.

In the 2015 - 2016 school year, we began to explore the redesigned BC Curriculum, with a new focus on process, curricular and core competencies, rather than on content.  This prompted us to have a fresh look at the core competencies of Social and Personal Responsibility.  In the 2016 - 2017 school year, we identified three areas of interest: students' self-knowledge of personal values, students' ability to self-regulate, and students' ability to solve problems in peaceful ways.  We asked ourselves what we could do as teachers to nuture these competencies in our students.  One of the approaches we took was to redesign our classrooms to be more flexible learning environments.