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“We’re the only school board in Ontario that has what we call a student-success teacher in elementary schools,” said Christian-Charle Bouchard, the superintendent of education for the Conseil des écoles publiques de l’est de l’Ontario (CEPEO). “Most boards have that in high schools, as do we, but we have that in elementary schools in literacy and in math.”

Those are lead teachers, in essence, subject-matter experts who get a period or two a day to gather and devise classroom materials, study the latest curriculum advances, and disseminate them to their fellow teachers. The board has similar experts who go from school to school to coach. His board produces “video capsules” for parents to brush up on the material their children are expected to grasp.

“We do a lot of individual work with students. So we do a lot of one-on-one to see where they are, what we can do to help them improve… We do analysis at the board level, but then we go physically to the schools and meet with student-success teams and see what we can do to help them out and what their needs are,” Bouchard said.

One thing the French public board has not done is retreat to drill instruction, as some parents demand when they see poor math results and reminisce about times tables and rote learning. The CEPEO teaches the same curriculum as other Ontario schools, “discovery math” and all.

“There’s an emphasis on collaborative learning, where students are confronted with a problem and they will be challenged to solve that problem. The teacher in that situation can help, but isn’t the source of all the knowledge,” Bouchard says. Letting students find their own ways to math solutions works, he says. “Problem-solving, for math, is a crucial component. We’re developing critical thinkers, and creative thinkers. A student that’s not motivated will have more trouble succeeding in school.”