The End of Year Period

The final period of the year involves reflection, self-assessment, and planning for all stakeholders. Teachers and administrators must assess this year’s successes, identify areas of growth, and begin strategic planning for next year. For teachers and administrators, it is important to bring closure to their work and to begin the new work cycle for next year. A key to success in this effort will be collection and organization of data on leadership, on teachers, and on students.

For students, the last period of the year is usually a fadeout into the summer. But educators have the opportunity to do some things with students that are beneficial to building their capacity as a self-initiated learner, preparing them to take ownership over their own performance and make a successful transition into their next year.

If teachers aren’t prepared to design and monitor effective EOY work, ad hoc professional development may need to be offered and coaching support provided.

Rhythm of the Learner Year Timeline

The End of Year (EOY) Period moves the students from the state test window through the last day of school. In best practice, it is a time to achieve closure and to begin transition and best practice work for all stakeholders. We sometimes think of this as the beginning of the next school year.

Timeframe

The EOY begins with the close of the Testing Period and lasts until the last day of school.

Goals

Bringing the current year’s learning to a close.
Doing work that helps organize all of this year’s learnings in long-term memory.
Transition activities to help the students move into an effective summer experience and make a successful transition to the next level.
Aggregating current year’s data for summer planning.

Priorities for the Period

Academic Leaders

Market a vision for optimum test environment to staff and students and provide opportunities for practice and scrimmage experiences.
Practice revised test day schedules, rituals and routines, and student placements.
Eliminate all extraneous distractions.
Develop and market plans for predictable disruptions and for unexpected distractions and disruptions – plans B and C.
Visibly support teachers and students in test prep and testing best-effort activities.
Visit all classrooms to support teachers and students and to identify teachers and students who are out of sync with the testing plan.
If problems are identified, meet daily with leadership team to form contingency plans.
Develop an EOY plan with the leadership team.
Interact with students individually to assess commitment and motivation and celebrate their effort and successes.
Check all teachers’ plans for debriefing and transition to EOY.
Complete an evaluation of the Opening Period, Formative Period, and Calibrating Period.

School Teachers

Maintain learning momentum through the last day of school.
Bring closure to teaching and learning for the year.
Enable a successful transition to the next grade level or the next stage.
Celebrate the learning, hard work, and successes of the year.
With students, plan summer activities that maintain performance, build language, and extend experience.
Collect final data points and final student profiles.

Interested in Reading the Book?

This book is the aggregation of the research and fieldwork that has gone into our approach to working with struggling schools as well as adding value to blue ribbon schools. We tried to write it in a step-by-step, show your math, chunked out format so that if the leadership team were never able to attend an Ed Directions PD, they could still plan and monitor their school year with the student-focused understanding of the Rhythm of the Learner Year in mind.