What an honor it is to serve in partnership with you in leading our Spartans towards academic excellence. At Sedgefield Middle School, our goal is to create a learning environment that holds all students to high expectations, providing responsive actions and support to ensure those expectations are met and maintained. Expectations are not only in place for academic performance but are also in place to target leadership and social-emotional development. To accomplish this, we will support a positive learning environment that allows our students to grow under consistent school-wide expectations that encompass academic excellence. Through the development of a responsive, positive and engaging learning environment we will be able to empower students with opportunities to take academic risks within a trusting environment.
At Sedgefield Middle School Spartans will:
Embrace challenges with a positive mindset to gain experience and develop self-efficacy.
Demonstrate, model, and choose respectful actions.
Engage at school with the intent to positively grow oneself.
Demonstrate self-control and seek perspective when approaching challenging academic and social situations.
Instructional engagement will be a key component of our comprehensive school plan. Engagement is critical for students and teachers and can be provided in a variety of ways. At Sedgefield Middle School, engagement will be demonstrated by staff through intentional planning of creative and relevant learning opportunities that are standards based. Teachers will analyze data, observations, and interests of students to provide opportunities for cooperative and collaborative learning. Students will then engage in activities that let them explore, experience, and interact with the content daily. We are confident that through intentional planning and active engagement our Spartans will not only recover skills but will deepen their understanding of content to a complex level.
The second key component of our comprehensive school plan is empowerment. Through reflection, goal setting, and interest-based opportunities, Sedgefield will work to empower students with a core understanding of their strengths, areas of growth, and the mindset it takes to achieve their goals. Students will also work to reflect in partnership with their teachers to provide teachers feedback on their understanding as well as interest in opportunities that were provided during the academic day. Reflection allows students to know where concentrated effort must be applied, and where they excel. Reflective practices support students’ long term in developing positive self-efficacy.
Jenni Donohoo (2017) describes collective teacher efficacy as “a staff’s shared belief that through their collective action they can positively influence student outcomes, including those who are disengaged and/or disadvantaged.”
It is through the shared belief that all kids can learn, intentionally focusing on demonstrated needs of our Spartans, and collective mindset that we will support ALL Spartans in achieving academic excellence.
In educational partnership,
Principal of Sedgefield Middle School