Iva Elementary School is helping all students develop the World Class Skills of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by providing a safe, caring, and academically challenging learning environment. We provide such an environment through the implementation of our school vision: a school that is “Dedicated, Driven, and Determined to be Excellent.” We demonstrate this vision by serving children according to their individual needs and helping them develop to their fullest potential. At Iva Elementary, our students are held accountable for learning state standards, striving toward high achievement, and learning to respect themselves as well as others.
Our focus this year has been on critical thinking, collaboration and creativity. This year for the first time we added a full time STEM Class at Iva Elementary School. STEM has allowed us to target all three of these areas. STEM focuses on the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math. Our desire is to help our students learn the engineering design process which will enable them to develop critical thinking skills and become better problem solvers. STEM allows our students to collaborate in pairs or small groups which helps foster the team concept that is required in so many jobs today.
Some of the critical thinking areas we focused on this year were Dream Box Math, Coding, IXL Math, Animals and Algorithms, Exploring Building and Design, Properties of Matter, Robotics, Jet Toy, Rocket Design, Lego Challenge, Breakout EDU, Sailboat Design Challenge, Behavioral and Structural Adaptations, Forces and Motion, Balanced and Unbalanced Forces, Constructive and Destructive Forces, Catapults, Circuits and more. All of these areas allowed our students to work cooperatively and creatively.
At Iva Elementary we also have various programs outside the academic world to focus on the development of the whole child. School-wide we have focused on The Essential 25 Rules for Discovering the Successful Student in Every Child. We believe it is imperative that our students learn what it means to be successful and that these skills will help to ensure success in life. The Essential 25 rewards our students for displaying positive behaviors. We celebrate these behaviors with our students every day. Our guidance counselor taught good decision making and career tracks in monthly classroom guidance lessons. Our students were visited this year by a group of pilots and mechanics affiliated with the Royal Canadian Air Force. During this visit our students were able to interact with these team members and ask specific questions concerning their jobs and the skills required. They discussed their educational degrees and backgrounds which gave our students a look into possible career tracks.
At Iva Elementary School we believe the school, family, and community must share the educational responsibility of our young. Thank you for all of your support in helping in the development of our future South Carolina graduates and world leaders!
Mrs. Cowan, Chair of the School Improvement Council
Eric Hughes, Principal