The Fulton Middle School PLC Story
Fulton Middle School is a 6-8 building located in central Missouri. Collaborative culture has been the foundation of all of our work at FMS. We have moved from a school with low trust and collaborative practices, to one where risks are encouraged and celebrated. Teaming practices have been developed and implemented. Culture and climate have been a daily focus specifically for building leaders and the leadership team and have evolved to all members of the staff and students taking responsibility for this area. Feedback is gathered frequently to help us improve practice.
Over the past four years, teams have worked to identify the standards which are most essential to each gravel level in each subject. Grading, assessment, and instruction has shifted focus to analyze these essential learner outcomes. Our staff has worked the past three years to become assessment capable teachers. This means we have done much professional development on the purposeful practice of quality assessment and grading. We have shifted our thinking and practice from traditional to standards based approaches of assessment. Much time has been devoted to developing proficiency scales around each standard so that staff and students (and parents) truly understand the learning progression to mastery and beyond. We are beginning the process of standards based grading on our grade cards as well. During the 2017-2018 school year, our physical education department piloted standards based grading (SBG). During the 2018-2019 school year, our elective and 6th grade team implemented SBG. Next year, 7th grade will join and the following year our whole building will be SBG. We have also made the shift to involve our students in the assessment process through data binders. These are in digital form for each content areas. Students track learning for each objective individually in their data binders for each class.
Personalized learning matters at Fulton Middle School. We started the year with each student creating a genius hour project based on a topic of personal interest. These passions have helped us to drive our instruction over the year. Our staff professional development plans have also shifted to Passion Professional Development, on a topic that is of most interest to each individual staff member. Our goal has been to move from compliance to engagement to empowerment of all learners at FMS!
Another goal we have is to sustain our PLC practices through time, no matter the school personnel. We have started to build practices and protocols to make this a reality. One of the biggest structures we have put in place is our Book of FMS for staff. This is a resource that was created to be a living guide for staff on the practices of our school. It is located in the resource section. To put together the book FMS, we polled our staff on what information was needed to help transistion year to year. They gave us multiple topics and then the leadership team put the resource together. We take time each fall to interacively train on this resource and add to it as needed throughout the year. It has been so valuable and helps us to stay focused on our collective commitments in action.
Our school has made exponential gains in a short period of time through dedication to the professional learning community process with all students, staff and our community. We have moved from the designation of a Missouri Focus School to a Missouri Exemplary Professional Learning Community-- one of only 24 middle school's in the state to attain this honor. We look forward to continuing our journey of living our mission of educating, engaging and empowering all learners at escalating levels!
Over the past four years, teams have worked to identify the standards which are most essential to each gravel level in each subject. Grading, assessment, and instruction has shifted focus to analyze these essential learner outcomes. Our staff has worked the past three years to become assessment capable teachers. This means we have done much professional development on the purposeful practice of quality assessment and grading. We have shifted our thinking and practice from traditional to standards based approaches of assessment. Much time has been devoted to developing proficiency scales around each standard so that staff and students (and parents) truly understand the learning progression to mastery and beyond. We are beginning the process of standards based grading on our grade cards as well. During the 2017-2018 school year, our physical education department piloted standards based grading (SBG). During the 2018-2019 school year, our elective and 6th grade team implemented SBG. Next year, 7th grade will join and the following year our whole building will be SBG. We have also made the shift to involve our students in the assessment process through data binders. These are in digital form for each content areas. Students track learning for each objective individually in their data binders for each class.
Personalized learning matters at Fulton Middle School. We started the year with each student creating a genius hour project based on a topic of personal interest. These passions have helped us to drive our instruction over the year. Our staff professional development plans have also shifted to Passion Professional Development, on a topic that is of most interest to each individual staff member. Our goal has been to move from compliance to engagement to empowerment of all learners at FMS!
Another goal we have is to sustain our PLC practices through time, no matter the school personnel. We have started to build practices and protocols to make this a reality. One of the biggest structures we have put in place is our Book of FMS for staff. This is a resource that was created to be a living guide for staff on the practices of our school. It is located in the resource section. To put together the book FMS, we polled our staff on what information was needed to help transistion year to year. They gave us multiple topics and then the leadership team put the resource together. We take time each fall to interacively train on this resource and add to it as needed throughout the year. It has been so valuable and helps us to stay focused on our collective commitments in action.
Our school has made exponential gains in a short period of time through dedication to the professional learning community process with all students, staff and our community. We have moved from the designation of a Missouri Focus School to a Missouri Exemplary Professional Learning Community-- one of only 24 middle school's in the state to attain this honor. We look forward to continuing our journey of living our mission of educating, engaging and empowering all learners at escalating levels!