Dear Banff Trail School Families,

As I have mentioned in a past Principal’s Message, a focus for improvement this year is to improve student writing by offering actionable feedback for tasks.  “Actionable feedback” means that teachers are looking to ensure that students receive information about what they can improve, and how they can improve.  So, instead of offering feedback that simply states that something is incorrect, or conversely that someone did a ‘great job!’, we want students to be able to understand what they did well, and how they can continue their learning trajectory.  This ‘next steps’ guidance is most often provided by teachers, but opportunities for guided self-improvement, or targeted moments of structured peer feedback, can also be efficient and worthwhile.  There is also no better time than the exact moment that the error is noted to model how it could be done and subsequently correct the error, and then have the student show that they understand the new learning.  A perfect analogy: if a teacher notices that someone is holding a badminton racquet incorrectly, should you give that feedback to them a week or two later when the incorrect handling is more engrained, or in the moment of them practicing the skill?  In the moment, of course!  It is worth reminding as well that we of course want to acknowledge students who put in a great effort at improvement—but that is the key, that we focus our praise much more on effort, than on ability, to help nurture a lifelong strong effort in the work that we undertake.

“How” teachers develop their ability to provide actionable feedback will of course vary by subject and grade-level, and although we are targeting improvement in students’ writing, we will ultimately be looking to provide feedback in all areas of study.  To optimally pair both a strong effort from students and actionable feedback from teachers, an example of how this could be done is by the teacher saying to a student: “There are four incorrect answers on this page (relating to a concept that was taught).  Find the errors, and fix them!  Try on your own first, and if you’re still stuck after 5 minutes, ask a peer for guidance about what you may have done incorrectly.  If you’re still stuck after consulting 2 peers, come see me for a hint.”  This is much more effective at teaching and consolidating the skill than simply having a teacher write the correct answers next to incorrect sections.  This also takes some effort in training students to provide supportive feedback to each other.  Other times, all it takes is for a teacher to point to a bulletin board on the class wall, saying, “Remember what we learned earlier today about XXXX; check out item #3 on our checklist for guidance about what you might have missed/done incorrectly”.  It can certainly be a fine line between prescription and vagueness for the guidance, and this is part of the skill that teachers navigate carefully, in consideration of who each child is as a learner (academically, emotionally, etc.).

Finally, know that feedback really should be targeted; we can’t learn and engrain everything all at once; again, thinking of the badminton analogy, we wouldn’t correct stance, posture, eyeline, grip, etc all at once—it would be too much!  As a writing example, if a student writes, “i love chacalits”, the teacher would likely have the students focus their attention on capitalizing the beginning of the sentence and/or the word “I”, or ending sentences with periods, but may not address the incorrect spelling of chocolates…that can come at some point, but one should focus the learning on the most important conventions to know!  I would encourage you to adopt the same philosophy home; there is always a lot that we see that we could ‘correct’ with children, but ask yourself what is most important in the here and now…while praising them for the many successful efforts that they make in constantly striving to improve oneself.

For your consideration:

Spirit/Theme Day: Our next Spirit Day will take place on Thursday, January 29^th, 2026, where we will host the “Love for Animation” theme.  Hopefully this can be a great way for students to express their love for their favourite tv shows, movies, or games!

Residencies: Our FitSet Ninja residency concluded on Friday this past week; it was a week of fun in our gym, as students explored this mobile obstacle course.  Each class had the opportunity to visit it twice.  A big thank you to our School Council, who, through their fundraising efforts, fully funded this opportunity.

Website: A reminder that our website contains a lot of information about our school, and is updated regularly, including recent schoolwide communications with the home (such as this Principal’s Message!), our School Development Plan, and much more.

Busing: A reminder that if your child takes the bus to get home, but will have a change in plan on any given day, please let the office know that they will not be on the bus, and what the change of plan will be.  You can do this by calling the school at 403-777-6120, pressing ‘1’ for the absence line, and leaving us this information as a message.  This will help us to ensure that all students are safely accounted for at the end of the day.  Thank you!

Upcoming Dates:

February 4: School Council, 6:30pm

February 9-11: Carnaval activities/celebrations

February 10: Kindergarten registration closes at noon

February 12, 13: Teachers’ Convention; school closed to students

February 16: Family Day (School Closed)

February 24: Report Cards available in PowerSchool

Wishing everyone a warm weekend,

Ryan Turner

Principal, Banff Trail School