At Whale Branch Elementary School, students develop world-class skills and characteristics to expand their life and career capabilities as proposed in the SC Profile of the Graduate. We use the Leader in Me framework to enhance our school culture, which enables us to help our students determine their strengths and responsibilities while expanding their competencies. Our high expectations for learning and development challenge both teachers and students. Highly-trained instructional coaches and master teachers expose our teachers to innovative teaching practices in weekly professional development activities.  Our school determines goals and explores strategies collaboratively to improve the educational program for our students. Our current priorities include increasing our scores on i-Ready, MAP (Measures of Academic Progress), SC Ready, and SC PASS.  We utilize the data from these and other assessments to inform the instruction given to students.   

A concentrated focus to provide specialized, intensive interventions for students in subgroups (struggling readers, special education students, ESOL, Gifted and Talented, and the like) is a priority. We further intend to work toward closing the achievement gap by instituting the following:

1) increased training for teachers to make small group instruction more effective 

2) underscoring the importance of using reading assessment tools (running records, literacy with fidelity, and technology resources especially the one-to-one devices) to more fully engage students

For more information on our school’s performance, you may view Whale Branch Elementary School’s Report Card for the previous year online  www.ed.sc.gov.

Marva Neal

Principal