East End Community School:  

Our Vision

Our Philosophy

The East End Community School is dedicated to meeting the learning needs of all our children, built on the following principles:

• Each child can and must achieve high academic and personal standards, but the pathway for each student may be different.
• Each child benefits from being part of a small community of learners and teachers where relationships can be built and nurtured over time.
• Teaching practices are built on common foundations of:
  • Active, in-depth learning
  • Collegial, collaborative practices
  • A safe, respectful, and caring environment
  • Literacy and critical thinking strategies embedded across disciplines

• The cultural and linguistic diversity of our community adds strength to our entire school.

Our Curriculum

The East End Community School provides an interdisciplinary framework in which children build understandings of key concepts year after year.

• Expeditionary Learning practices are our primary method of teaching, rooted in local community sites and issues.
• We employ effective instructional practices across content disciplines with particular emphasis on literacy and math, informed by ongoing assessment and data.
• Visual arts, movement, music and drama are used as vehicles for children as they:
  • Make sense of concepts
  • Explore new interests
  • Demonstrate their strengths
  • Share their learning with each other and the community
• Students engage in authentic fieldwork with the community, using the natural and social environment of their surroundings to investigate, collect data, conduct interviews and present their work to a real audience.

School Culture and Character

East End Community School develops and sustains practices that bring the community together, promote shared understandings, and encourage all participants to become crew, not passengers.

• Our learning communities use the Responsive Classroom approach to help each other develop cooperative skills, a positive attitude, responsibility, empathy and self-control.
  • We employ rituals and traditions such as morning meeting.
  • We develop rules and logical consequences with our students.
  • We hold each other responsible for contributing to a culture for learning.
• Parents are our partners. We strive to develop multiple opportunities for all families to engage in the life of the school and to support their child’s learning.
• We celebrate together.

School Structures

East End Community School develops school structures that help teachers to know and serve students well.

• The East End Community School is designed with three smaller learning communities where staff is committed to educating and supporting each child.
• Staff will work in their respective roles in K-2 and 3-5 clusters, each occupying a group of classrooms in close proximity, to take advantage of flexible scheduling and grouping, to best meet the needs of each student.
• Special educators are integrated into each cluster to support student success in each learning endeavor.
• As a professional learning community our teaching staff pursues ongoing professional development to reflect on, refine, and extend our practice in order to improve student learning.
• Music, Art, Physical Education teachers and Library staff will have regular, on-going planning and teaching time with teams/clusters.
• Teachers assume leadership roles and take an active part in advancing the mission of the school.
• The Stewardship Committee maintains the vision of East End Community School and addresses school wide policy issues that are best handled through shared decision making. It meets regularly with representatives of the entire staff.