Core Curriculum lessons were developed and delivered to all students based upon the ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors in conjunction with Bailey Bridge Middle School's diverse student needs and the Chesterfield County’s Design for Excellence 2020. The core curriculum supports our vision and mission in the belief that all students have the potential to be successful with proper support. Out of the sixteen lessons created, three were chosen to best outline the scope of this school year’s core curriculum. The efficacy of the data presented shows the outcomes of our current populations. Our student’s needs are ever-changing, thus, we continue to analyze data from our lessons to best support our overall population, which may result in adding more lessons, or altering current lessons within the core curriculum.
Promote Respect Den Time: Getting Involved: This lesson presented to all students, was developed based on our Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) committee’s data in an effort to decrease discipline and build a sense of community. The data revealed a need to decrease in-school and out of school suspensions. Student’s learned the importance of wellness, and how to demonstrate respect by learning about potential opportunities to give back to their community through school fundraising activities. The school’s largest fundraiser, which donates to The Children’s Hospital had a 10% increase in ticket sales from the previous year, which created an 18% increase in the amount of money donated to the charity. This data correlates with this lesson’s goal of building community and giving back. Separately, there was a decrease overall in discipline, based on end of year data. There was a 46% decrease with in-school suspensions; and a 68% decrease in out of school suspensions. This data shows that building a community where students are invested in their school, ultimately creates better behavior overall. Future Den Time lessons will focus on more categories of Character Education. Our department will create and provide lessons once per month compared to three times in the year, in hopes to show even more positive growth among our students.
Career lessons were presented to all of our 7th grade students by the grade level counselors. These lessons supported one of our program goals and were developed by a group of county middle school counselors in order to have consistency throughout the county. Students took a pre and post assessment, completed an interest survey online and began their 6-year Academic and Career Plan. Upon completion of the lesson, 79% of students were able to identify their top two career clusters, qualities and activities that relate to those clusters, and at least one occupation from one of those clusters. Unfortunately, the program goal linked to these lessons was not met. Looking forward, the interest survey has been adjusted to maximize understanding, the pre and post assessment was adjusted for a more accurate evaluation of the objectives, and students will receive a paper copy of their results for better comprehension of their information prior to the post assessment. It was also discovered that we did not separately assess the 7th graders that were not in our building in 6th grade. For future lessons, we will make the distinction as to whether they received career curriculum here at BBMS to better qualify our data.
Historically, 6th grade students are lacking study skills and not prepared to manage their new academic course loads. A pre and a post assessment was given, and a survey to identify student’s learning preference. Upon completion, 100% of the students knew their learning style, a 44% increase from before the lesson. 97% of the students knew appropriate study skills to accommodate their learning style, a 33% increase from before the lesson. It was beneficial for these students to know that they receive and process information differently from each other. This created a more engaging classroom climate. The overall discipline rate decreased by an average of 57%. Beyond that, improvements to Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) state testing in Reading increased 6.6% and Math increased 1.2% among these students. Future lessons should provide more handouts for students to keep that include more specific study skill techniques for each learning style. This data created insight to more lessons that need to be a part of the middle school transition process. Giving these students opportunities to expand their self awareness and understand their learning style can play a large role in a smoother and more successful transition into middle school.