Our School

Our Mission and Vision Statement

Mission

Langdon School is dedicated to empowering our students, parents, and staff to create a school community whereby confident, self-aware individuals strive to be resilient, adaptable, and accountable while caring for their personal well-being.

Vision

We are committed to transforming the lives of our students by providing an engaging classroom experience that equips, inspires and compels contribution in 21st Century culture. Our goal is to create an environment of mutual respect that fosters the development of the whole child through positive role modeling, healthy relationships, consistency, and accountability.

Belief Statements

We Believe…

• (in) creating a safe community of mutual trust and respect is a priority.
• students need to be resilient and adaptable to grow academically.  This means supporting them when needed, and gradually releasing responsibility to them for decision making.
• students are engaged in their studies when they understand its purpose, it is meaningful to their generational understanding, and it is well crafted and applicable.  We also keep in mind that foundational skills require practice for solidification.
• in setting high expectations academically, socially and emotionally for all students to bring about future success.  These expectations are designed to move a student forward as it relates to their current experience.
• in building the whole child to be independent, confident, and self-aware individuals.
• all stakeholders (parents, staff, community) can be positive role models for healthy relationships.
• the modeling of positive interactions with others and having consistent expectations, benefit the whole community.
• in the hallmarks of the Alberta Competencies for Students https://education.alberta.ca/competencies/student-competencies?searchMode=3
• through constant research and growth, teachers, students, and the community will achieve planned goals.
• in the gradual release of responsibility to students so they will grow socially, emotionally and mature positively through their life decisions.

21st Century Learning

How do you prepare students for a future which has not yet been created?  "Today, schools need to prepare students for more rapid change than ever before, for jobs that have not yet been created, using technologies that have not yet been invented, to solve problems that we don’t yet know will arise" (Schleicher, 2012). How is this possible?  Some months back I had an opportunity to hear the CEO of Cenovus Energy speak about what they are looking for in an employee.  I assumed they were going to talk about levels of education, university versus college, students with high intellectual understanding, etc.  Rather, they spoke about what we value in education currently.  Ideas such as, "graduates who can think and problem solve".  For many of us, we are from the generation of knowledge and memorization.  Although we had the Internet, knowledge was not as readily assessable to us as it is today.  Today we are teaching our students in ways to help them be successful in a future, which seems unknown from a knowledge standpoint.  So, what does that mean in our foundations for learning?  The foundations remain the same.  Our students still require a strong foundation in literacy and numeracy.  However, they also require a foundation in critical thinking, analysis, problem solving, group problem solving, global awareness, and solid resiliency in the face of failure.  What the CEO of Cenovus was pointing out, is the difference between teaching "what to know" versus teaching how to acquire "what you need to know".  The attitude of learning is truly life long.  I asked the CEO "what do our graduating students need today when they leave high school?", his response was (paraphrased), "they need to know how to learn and how to problem solve.  The knowledge aspect of their job will be taught to them, I need to know they have the ability to learn and solve problems of every nature".  The balance in education is making sure the foundations and the preparation for the future are working in concert together.   This why in RVS you constantly hear us talking about the 21st Century Skills and Universal Learning Environments. During our professional development days we are reading, studying, discussing, and creating, to make Langdon School classrooms the best they can be.