What Do Teachers Do On Professional Learning Days?

On Professional Learning Days and Friday afternoons, teachers collaborate to look at student assessment data to determine the best next steps for teaching the students. Teachers design tasks with their grade-level teaching teams and discuss which high-impact strategies to use to positively impact students social-emotionally and academically. This work contributes to meeting the goals of our School Development Plan: increasing student achievement and well-being. See our School Development Plan for 2025 - 2026 here: SDP

Janet Johnstone School's Continuum Well-Being of Supports (below) is a result of our collective work.

On Friday, May 15 our teachers worked together to begin imagining the possibilities for 2026 - 2027. Each year we choose a picture book to spark excitement, creativity and add to our students' sense of belonging. Our text for next year will inspire teamwork, creativity and resilience and set the stage for students' growth.

Our teaching team also planned their next Math Sprint, a common math task for all students to do as a pre-assessment. After students have completed the first task, teachers will meet to look at student work and plan strategies to support students in understanding the math concept. We are encouraging students to have a growth mindset through productive struggle, a research-based math teaching practice.

Struggle in mathematics occurs when students face a challenging task that they do not immediately know how to solve. Students are engaging in productive struggle when they engage in tasks that require them to wrestle with critical mathematical ideas that are “within reach but present enough challenge” (Hiebert & Grouws, 2007, p. 388).

Class Creation for the 2026 - 2027 School Year

Please see this story about how teachers create class lists and how parents can give their input: Next Year

Please see these updates from our committed JJ School Council!

JJ SPRING DANCE

Thank you to all the families who helped make the JJ Family Spring Dance a great success! We hope everyone had a fantastic time at our Beach Party celebration. 

Thanks to your support, we raised a total of $4,728.80 from this year’s event

An extra special thank you to our school staff, volunteers and dessert donors for helping make the evening possible. We appreciate everyone’s support and look forward to future community events!

MABEL’S LABELS:

If you haven’t had a chance yet, now is the perfect time to stock up on personalized, waterproof name labels for your child’s school gear—everything from lunch containers and water bottles to clothing and shoes. Not only do these labels help keep your child’s belongings out of the lost and found, but 20% of every purchase also supports our school!

Use the link below to order:

https://mabelslabels.ca/en-CA/fundraising/support

Search for and select “Janet Johnstone School (Calgary)” and start shopping

COBS BREAD (Shawnessy):

When you shop at COBS Bread Shawnessy simply mention the Janet Johnstone School code 5912 and 5% of your purchase will be donated to our school!

Here's what's coming up at JJ: