(Pictured above: Westminster Public School Principal Sharon

Halladay is shown  holding her school's certificate after Westminster was selected to be featured in this year's Schools on the Move: Lighthouse Program Publication. She is pictured at a recent Board meeting beside Superintendent Dave Coombs, left, Chair Greg Pietersma, inside right, and Director David Thomas.)

(Brockville) – The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat has selected Westminster Public School to be featured in this year’s Schools on the Move: Lighthouse Program publication, an initiative that showcases 35 out of almost 5000 schools across Ontario that have made great achievements in literacy and numeracy.

“We are very excited to have been selected,” said Principal Sharon Halladay. “The program is not really a competition. It’s just a collection of schools that have demonstrated high-yield strategies and best practices that might work in other schools.”

Halladay said the school was nominated for the program in December 2008 for a variety of reasons, including its implementation of literacy groups in grade 3 and 6, its use of assistive technology like WordQ and Kurzweil, its individualized assessment strategies and its significant improvements in EQAO testing over the last three years. In the primary assessment, reading, writing and mathematics scores have more than doubled, and in the junior assessment, reading and writing scores have improved by more than 20 per cent.

Halladay said the recommendation had to be approved by Superintendent David Coombs and Director of Education David Thomas. She then drafted and submitted to the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat a detailed application noting the school’s accomplishments. On April 23, a group of Schools on the Move representatives came to Westminster to interview the Associate Director of Education Ian Carswell and Halladay, as well as staff members and parents.

“They were very specific about what they were looking for during this visit,” said Halladay.

Not long after, Halladay was informed Westminster had been selected to receive the designation. On June 9, Coombs and a team from Westminster travelled to Toronto to accept an award and a financial gratuity. The funds are to be used to facilitate future literacy and numeracy initiatives at the school and to promote the sharing of best practices across the board.

The 2009 Schools on the Move: Lighthouse Program publication will be mailed to schools and available on-line this August.

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For more information, please call:

Sharon Halladay

Principal

Westminster Public School

613-345-5552

Posted June 22, 2009