Saxe Gotha Elementary School is committed to providing a world-class education as students take the first steps on their educational journey toward developing the world-class skills of the Profile of a South Carolina Graduate. Our mission every day is to cultivate a caring community where all learners are extraordinary communicators, collaborators, creators, and critical thinkers. Our children and community rallied around our theme of “One Team, One Dream.” By forging bonds between children, teachers, parents, staff, and stakeholders our community came together as one team to support our children’s development of the World Class Skills of the Profile of a South Carolina Graduate.
Our faculty, staff, and community believe in building positive relationships with our students and providing them with multiple opportunities to build positive relationships with each other. We do this every morning during “Morning Meeting” and every afternoon during “Closing Circle.” During these times, children can practice being kind, personally and socially responsible, and extraordinary communicators and collaborators. By giving children multiple opportunities to demonstrate these skills every day, we are producing Shining Stars who are ready to be leaders with exemplary interpersonal skills.
At SGES, our teachers implement the South Carolina College and Career Readiness standards using the workshop model; through this model, teachers are able to provide rigorous instruction on grade-level content and meet the needs of all learners where they are in their educational journey. Our primary grades have adopted a focus on phonics instruction incorporating UFLI and Heggerty. Our teachers at SGES make important instructional decisions for children using data and utilize the iReady platform for diagnostic testing and the iReady Personalized Pathways to allow children to progress through the content, in reading and math, at their own pace. This allows children to work independently on the content they may be struggling with and allows other learners to accelerate their learning beyond their current grade level. We celebrated the success children demonstrated on their iReady diagnostic exams each time they reached their “Stretch Growth Goal.” This goal is an ambitious goal set for children, based on their first diagnostic score, to go beyond what we expect them to typically learn in a school year. Our teachers, instructional coaches, interventionists, and administrators held Data Chat and Chews with children during lunch periods to talk about the goals they set with their teacher and the strategies they were using to reach their goals. After the winter and spring diagnostic, we held an “iReady Awards Ceremony.” Our cafeteria was full celebrating all of the children for reaching their “Stretch Growth Goals.”
We provide a well-rounded education at SGES and our Related Arts classes allow children to demonstrate their world-class skills in Music, Art, S.T.E.A.M., Physical Education, and Spanish. Our related arts teachers encourage all children to be S.T.A.R. — Safe, Trustworthy, Accountable, and Respectful — Shining Stars. At the end of each quarter, each grade level held a S.T.A.R. Rally and we recognized students for demonstrating S.T.A.R. behaviors during class and we recognized children for reaching academic excellence on their iReady Personalized Pathways.
Our school is a Unified Champion school in partnership with the South Carolina Special Olympics. By creating an inclusive environment our children can demonstrate world-class skills such as integrity and perseverance while taking field studies and competing at the Special Olympics with their unified partners. It’s a special sight to see the whole school cheering on our Special Olympians as they head to the games.
Mentoring at SGES was strong this year. Our School Counselors led our Shining Stars through multiple mentoring programs. In partnership with MCEC, scores of children were able to learn about science and electricity while also engaging in fun activities with a mentor. Our counselors developed a “Big and Little Mentor'' group where 5th and 4th graders were paired up with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders to help them develop positive interpersonal skills and engage in literacy-rich activities. We continued our partnership with Covenant Community Church where they adopted a 2nd grade class to read to each week and work with small groups of students on reading skills.
The Saxe Gotha Elementary School community is committed to supporting their children in and out of the classroom. Under the leadership of our family liaison, our family engagement events achieved great attendance. During American Education Week, we held Parent University and provided parents with the tools and knowledge to support their child at home. Our sessions focused on Reading Workshop, Math Workshop, Morning Meeting, Feedback-Driven Progress Reporting, School Counseling, and Response to Intervention. Throughout the school year, we held family friendly events that paired fun and learning. At our Grandparents Breakfast, we shared literacy strategies for grandparents to incorporate in their time with the children and at our Pastries with Parents event, we provided math resources and games for parents to reinforce their child’s numeracy skills at home. We capped our year off with our Shining Star Showcase where all children were able to perform, demonstrate, or showcase the work they completed during their Related Arts classes. Our community shows up to support and celebrate their child at all of our events and workshops. Our community exemplifies the notion that “It takes a Village!”
Joseph Casey, Principal
Jason Hathcock, SIC Chairperson
