Table of Contents

Introduction

Relationships are at the heart of the work we do in our TMS Elementary program. Our students experience pure moments of joy when they see their teachers each morning at school. It is this premise that helped us design our Learning @ Home program for our young students. As we evolved our offerings, relational learning and continued connections were at the heart of our decision making and motivated us to create a program that maintained that sense of community. What is essential for our team is that your child knows they are cared for in a time that may feel uncertain to them. As parents, it is also imperative that you too know the value you bring to our program. These relationships are the driving force behind the next phase of Learning @ Home.

Moving to the Learning @ Home Program has meant a significant change in how we deliver our Elementary program. We have learned a lot over the past few weeks. We have listened to the feedback from our teachers, students and parents. We have made changes and adapted to new technology. With all of that, we have put together this plan to clearly show the various components of this program and the level of teaching support. Over the past few weeks, we have had an opportunity to design a program that connects our students to us and to each other and provides them with new ways to experience learning.

The hub of this program is the technology that allows us to engage the students in live time lessons. In addition, we are using experiential learning opportunities that are rooted in inquiry to provide our students with the opportunities to learn, share, collaborate and internalize their learning. Real life experiences and problem solving that are already inherent in our Elementary classrooms have been reimagined to continue to inspire our students to think about things differently. While advancing our academic curriculum remains the focus for each grade, opening our students’ minds to the rich experiences online learning provides will equip them to be ready for the future. We believe this opportunity will give our students the chance to build resilience, learn to pivot and be adaptable, and increase their abilities to be resourceful. It is our hope that our students are engaged in online and offline collaboration to solve authentic problems, feel supported to take intellectual risks while persevering through challenges, and continue to receive feedback and experience time for reflection and revision.

The success of our Learning @ Home Program is dependent on careful planning by our dedicated faculty, appropriate student motivation and engagement, and strong parent support. The result of such learning experiences will expand student academic progress and attend to student social and emotional well-being. In this document, we have laid out how TMS has developed a distance learning program for Elementary which includes both an Asynchronous Learning Environment as well as Synchronous, realtime engagements. ● An Asynchronous Learning Environment does not require participants, teachers, and students to be online at the same time. This allows for students to finish some of the work on their own time and at their own rate. ● Synchronous, real-time engagements are opportunities for students to participate in academic and social engagements with their teachers and classmates at an established time to allow for interactions in real time.

While we know it is hard to replicate the learning journey your child experiences each day at TMS, we hope this bridge to their learning is helpful, fun, joyful and engaging. We encourage you and your child to share your ideas, experiences and the conversations this new form of learning provokes. We hope that this will increase comfort using technology, encourage students to lean into a new challenge with courage and optimism and help to increase independence in our Elementary students.

I encourage you to follow along on our Learning@Home Page where you can get updates about our distance learning across all parts of TMS, see pictures and videos of student learning, and hear from students and their parents who are sharing their experiences with this new way of learning.

Thank you for continuing to encourage and support our efforts as we aim to together foster the growth and well-being of your children.

Rachel Marks Head of Elementary rmarks@tmsschool.ca