Kim Palfenier has been an NCCP (National Coaching Certificate Program) coach for nearly 30 years and has been coaching coaches for the past four. Her facilitation experience covers sport and fundamental movement skills at the community, competitor and instructor levels.
And now she can include K-12 teachers in the mix.
On Friday, March 9, over 200 Kootenay Lake School District (SD8) teachers participated in a broad range of workshops for Curriculum Implementation Day. Kim was brought in by the District’s Innovative Learning Services department to offer a workshop that could help teachers detect and correct basic errors for fundamental movement skills.
Twelve teachers from around the district spent the afternoon tossing balls, skipping and jumping over obstacles while contemplating developmental stages and adaptive modifications that could be applied to students with specific physical, sensory or behavioural disabilities.
One of the learning standards outlined in the new curriculum is fundamental movement.
“Everybody needs these skills,” explains Kim, “whether you play sports or not — being able to run, skip, balance, throw a ball — these are the skills we need to remain active our entire lives.”
This non-instructional day for students was specifically added to the academic calendar by the BC Ministry of Education as a time for teachers to focus on learning the new curriculum. Other workshop topics offered to teachers included exploring MakerSpace Tools, how to introduce and embed authentic Indigenous materials and content in the classroom, FortisBC’s Energy Leaders hands-on session on teaching electricity and electromagnetism, Coyote Mentoring — a powerful nature-based education model and more.
Lorri Fehr, Director of SD8’s Innovative Learning Services toured several of the workshops that day exclaiming, “I’m very proud of our teachers. They are so incredibly committed to implementing this new curriculum, and it shows in their excitement.”
Workshop presenter Kim Palfenier couldn’t agree more, “It was such a delight to see how dedicated these teachers are to enhancing the student experience. They are so committed to their role, it is very heartening.”
The next event for SD8 teachers to discover new practical tools and ideas to implement in their classrooms was this week. The Kootenay Lake Summit was a two-day multi-disciplinary professional development opportunity on April 15-16.
Full transition to the new K-10 curriculum will take effect in 2018-2019, a move towards modernizing the education system, and as far as SD8 teachers go, they are getting in the game.
For more information, contact Lorri Fehr, Director of Innovative Learning atlfehr@sd8.bc.ca