UFV Teacher Candidates Included at Fox

If you are like most teachers in the profession, you had limited inclusion practice in your teacher training program, despite this being the foundation for our planning. Recognizing that exceptional models for inclusion exist within Abby SD, Jennifer Ofeimu (District Equity Helping Teacher) worked with UFV Professor Dr. Nikki Yee to showcase the work at Terry Fox Elementary as an exemplar for Professor Yee’s students. The project evolved into creating six videos in the Fall of 2021 featuring how Terry Fox staff meet the physical and communication needs for children with exceptionalities, while highlighting relationship-building activities and the importance of collegial collaboration.

Fox was thought to be a great choice for this work. It is a school with a high level of diverse needs and is blessed with an enthusiastic and student-centric staff who regularly engage in professional conversations around meeting student needs. Its team has a well-established "willingness to be vulnerable, listen and trust one another with the common goal of supporting the diversity of the children before them" (Ofeimu - project filmmaker and leader), making them great role models to feature.

After the EDUC 412 students watched the videos in their classes, they got an opportunity to meet and discuss the content with the Fox staff. The work was very well received. According to one UFV student, "the video's key takeaways were the importance of relationships, especially in building classroom communities to create safe spaces for students to learn and grow. The importance of collaboration, with students, teachers, admin, families, and other support staff in supporting the super-diversity of students in the classroom became very clear".

We have great hopes for this upcoming cohort of teacher candidates from UFV. What a start to their journey as teachers! We also would like to thank Jennifer Ofeimu and Dr. Nikki Yee for making this inspirational project come together.

ANGELA MAGON
Principal, Terry Fox Elementary