Our Inquiry Team met together regularly throughout the school year and since our special Orange Shirt Day assembly.  From our November post:

We were happy with the amazing learning experiences our educators created for our students and our community, but we believed that the work to make things right for our students and families of First Nations must become a way of being each and every day here at Woodward. We must teach our students of the hardships and injustices the Indigenous children and families faced, including the tragic Residential School experiences they endured, and we must also honour and celebrate the rich culture and contributions of the people of First Nations descent in Canada. We believe that Woodward is an inclusive and caring community, but we also know that we can strive to do better for our Indigenous learners, and for all of the students, staff and families in our community.

We had our goal.  Our inquiry question became our focus.  As we explored our question, we looked at the First People's Principles of Learning (FPPL). 

We found example resources that have been created to help make the FPPL more accessible to staff.  Ultimately, we want to enhance student learning by incorporating the FPPL more fully in daily learning and practices in our classrooms. We found this sample to guide our inquiry:

As a team, we made our own connections between the FPPL, the curriculum core competencies, and Indigenous resources.  Some of the notes we sketched:

Our hope is to continue to explore resources and opportunities to enhance the connections to the principles.  Our aim is to look at furthering outdoor learning opportunities and play-based learning. We created the below 'working document' (with hyperlinks to a variety of ideas, lessons and activities to enrich the learning for all grade levels) as an effort to make the nine principles more accessible to staff and students. 

As June approached, we wanted to do something special to acknowledge National Indigenous History Month and National Indigenous People's Day (June 21st).

Our inquiry efforts throughout this school year culminated in our whole school 'Outdoor Learning Day' on June 12, 2024.  All classes spent the entire day outside learning in our family teams (multi-aged groupings), as well as in our class groups.  The focus for a portion of the learning day was on Indigenous learning (stories, exploring local indigenous plants, learning an indigenous game, group discussion).  We hope to repeat this learning day each year and expand on our learning and new knowledge.