An approach to take stock of the year in order to better plan the next

There is no need to recall that the last school year was the scene of several adaptations in school settings. At the end of this year, the school teams are invited to take a break to take a look at the learning achieved in order to better project themselves into the future. The RÉCIT resource persons propose an approach to carry out this assessment.

“In my opinion, it is important that school administrators take advantage of the end of the year to initiate a collective reflection with their team. This downtime, just before the holidays, can be an opportunity to take advantage of the achievements made and the challenges encountered this year in order to be able to use them as leverage in order to project into the future ”, points out Mélissa Bricault, RÉCIT advisor. at the Thousand Islands School Service Center.

With other colleagues (Sophie Nadeau-Tremblay, resource teacher from the École en network, and Emilie Bowles, from the RÉCIT national service for general adult education), she developed a proposal for a reflective approach that can now be found on this website. 

Since managers often ask themselves "Where to start?" », They designed a accompanying document, including collaborative outlines for each of the stages. These will be able to guide the teams in carrying out the process. It is possible to use them as models and adapt them to each environment. The process may take on a larger or smaller scale, depending on the time allocated to it. 

The proposed approach takes place in four stages: 

1. To define common needs. (We must first agree on the objective of the process.) 
2. To be situated individually and collectively, taking into account the vision and values of the school team. (You must then name your successes and individual challenges in order to be able to compare them with the successes and the collective challenges of the school. Different subjects relating to life at school can be discussed. Attention, it is impossible to do everything. cover, it will be necessary to make choices.)

3. Get inspired winning practices: which ones to retain? How will they be transferable? (Now is the time to discuss what works well - and will want to keep - and what does not work well - and want to improve. mental map can be used to do so.)
4. Project oneself by identifying common actions and objectives. (It is time to target concrete actions and means as a team to achieve the objectives set.)

This section of the website brings together the steps and all the tools necessary to complete each one. A call for mobilization, a few individual reflections followed by a moment together will allow us to take a look at the past year and agree on an action plan for the next year, believes Ms. Bricault. 

“The important thing is to get into action and not wait until the start of the school year to do so. This approach can really be meaningful for school teams. This is an opportunity to give ourselves the means to approach the next year with optimism, ”she concludes.

The tools available:

• Site presenting the reflective approach: monurl.ca/concertation
• The stages of the process and the collaborative frameworks: In short
• Our accompanying document full.