Education Planner Pathways Planning Contest Winner Spotlight: Courtice Intermediate School
Pathways Planning has been identified as an essential activity in successfully helping students explore interests, build skills, and make and achieve academic, career and life goals.
As a result, the myBlueprint team was excited to launch its first-ever Education Planner Pathways Planning Contest on April 4, 2022, to ALL Grade 6–9 students attending schools across Canada that license myBlueprint Education Planner.
The contest was well received and after reviewing numerous entries, one school emerged as the winner!
In this Winner Spotlight, we will be celebrating the success of Courtice Intermediate School (Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, Ontario), the winner of our Education Planner Pathways Planning Contest.
Courtice Intermediate School
Courtice has implemented Education Planner in Grades 7-8 since 2019 and has consistently achieved over 80% student completion rates of Individual Pathways Plan (IPP) tasks!
Kim Usher, the Grades 7–8 Guidance and Planning Teacher responsible for the school’s competition win, had a fun and strategic approach to getting students to complete their tasks. She had students complete a Plan for Success Scavenger Hunt to get them to explore the IPP Tasks resource and to start thinking about high school. How amazing!
After completing their four tasks, for the fifth (and final) reflection task, Kim specifically asked students to reflect on what they learned that they didn’t already know about high school or what they still want to know. She believed these reflection prompts would optimally prepare students for a future high school orientation visit with questions they would be able to ask.
Kim was happy to share with us her and her students’ experience in participating in the Contest and graciously gave some insight on how she would continue to use Education Planner below.
What tasks did your students enjoy?
‘Students enjoyed the surveys and career exploration tasks mostly.’
In your opinion, what is the value of Individual Pathways Plan Tasks/Activities to students?
‘I think the IPP tasks and activities are invaluable to students in helping them develop greater self-awareness of themselves as learners and citizens; the program offers so much valuable information about a wide range of pathways and careers for students to explore; love the portfolio options also.’
What was your strategy for keeping students motivated to complete their Pathways Planning tasks?
‘Definitely the prize incentives!!!’
How do you plan on continuing to use Education Planner in the classroom going forward?
‘In addition to the helpful table indicating which tasks should be completed each year, I like to provide students with seemingly open-ended tasks that require them to explore the various parts of the program.’
If you’re new to myBlueprint Education Planner and are not sure how to introduce Individual Pathways Plan tasks (or Educational Pathways Plan tasks in Alberta and Northwest Territories) to your students, click here to learn more. Also, watch and share a student-led video tutorial on IPP/EPP Tasks and Prizes with your students.
If you’ve reviewed the resources above and still have other questions about IPP/EPP Tasks, contact myBlueprint Support. We’re always happy to help!
