Ellerslie Campus is a K-9 school with a school population that includes a large number of ELL students and students with diverse needs. An essential focus of the staff is on student-centred teacher collaboration using the pyramid of intervention to improve the engagement, participation and achievement of all students. This learner-centered collaboration leads to a pyramid of intervention response, and is managed through the principles of universal design.

At Ellerslie, the culture of collaboration is designed to impact teachers' planning and assessment through a lens focused on evidence of student learning to build teacher capacity, determining needs and creating learning opportunities to differentiate instruction.

The Professional Learning Community at Ellerslie Campus centres around three big ideas and four questions.

Big Ideas:

• Focus on Learning (rather that Teaching)
• Focus on Collaboration (on the right things)
• Focus on Results (formative assessment)

Questions:

• What is it we expect our students to learn?
• How will we know when they have learned it?
• What will we do when they have not learned it?
• What will we do when they have learned it?

• How important is collaboration between staff when planning for meeting the needs of diverse learners?
• How would teachers interact to effectively collaborate?
• What do the two phrases, "by the student," and "by the skill," mean to you?
• What is the difference between, "a student with autism," and "an autistic needs student?"

• How did the teachers collaborate to determine student learning opportunities for flexible instructional groupings?
• What advantages and risks are there in students having more than one teacher within a subject area? For students? For teachers?
• How would you explain to parents that their child had three teachers for mathematics?
• How does the school support learning with the, "I can," statements?