School Goal One
At ILC, students will develop resilience, social responsibility, a healthy identity, and a sense of belonging in their community through positive adult connections, supported interpersonal opportunities and wrap around mental health support.
How do we create more opportunities for students to practice and build positive and supported peer connections?
How can we develop learning opportunities that are engaging, relevant, and build self confidence in our learners?
Saanich Secondary Students
School District 63 Individual Learning Centre fosters the growth of students who are confident, life long learners, ready to make an active contribution to their family and community. Our students achieve academic, career, and personal excellence through self paced, individualized learning in a calm, caring and respectful environment. The Individual Learning Centre (ILC) is a school of choice and has two locations in Broadmead and Saanichton that support students working towards Ministry of Education graduation in courses grade 9 – 12. ILC aligns to the BC Curriculum through a personalized, flexible, and innovative approach.
Students come to ILC with varied needs. Many seek a different educational experience that involves flexible programming, a smaller school setting, wrap around mental health support, and the ability to work face to face with a caring educator on a personalized plan. We learn about our students through a thoughtful intake process, daily check ins with teacher advisors and support staff, and close connections with family and guardians. ILC staff build relational trust with students and ensure that student voice is at the center of each educational plan. Through this model, our students demonstrate academic success while building essential life skills in communication, thinking, and personal and social competency.
Our students:
- Come to us from across the Saanich School District;
- Are on their own individual learning journey and require personalized academic and mental health supports to build confidence, capacity, purpose and a positive identity;
- Are strong, intelligent, hard-working, talented, unique individuals who are worthy of success;
- May have experienced multiple barriers within the traditional school system or greater community that have prevented them from fully engaging with learning;
- Have rich and diverse cultural backgrounds and past life experiences; and
- Might say, “Get to know me. Meet me where I am at. I can learn. I deserve a pathway forward!”
This goal and focused inquiry questions align directly to our strategic priority in Mental Health and Wellness. Additionally, our intended approaches are deeply connected to the First Peoples Principles of Learning.
First Peoples Principles of Learning
The Mental Health and Wellness Goal needs to ensure that:
- Learning ultimately supports the well-being of the self, the family, the community, the land, the spirits, and the ancestors.
- Learning requires exploration of one ‘s identity.
- Starting every learning opportunity with a healthy adult relationship! Every student has a Teacher Advisor with whom they collaboratively construct a Personal Eduction Plan;
- Offering full wrap around support through increased counselling services for students and families both onsite as well as through Outreach opportunities;
- Strengthening relationships with outside agencies to ensure our students and families are resourced throughout the year;
- Supporting early intervention by offering a grade 9 cohort model that builds core academic skills;
- Addressing anxiety and mental health barriers through small group work, targeted social skills training, after school support groups, and active living opportunities;
- Enriching the grad program through cross enrollment and partnership with neighbourhood schools;
- Prioritized and purposeful trasitions to dual credit opportunities, district career programs, post secondary and the world of work; and
- Offering a combination of academics, land-based learning, clinical counselling, and community involvement through a partnership with the Take a Hike Foundation.
Over the 2023-24 year, we will track progress on our initiatives identified in this year’s plan.
Summary learning, based on evidence gathered over the year, will provide us with key learnings to guide next steps for the 2024-25 school year and beyond.
