Education plan praised for attempt to build sense of belonging

The first goal of New Brunswick's 10-year anglophone education plan,to ensure that all students have a strong sense of belonging, is one that can only be accomplished by all government departments and school communities working together, saysPaul Toner.

Toner is the early childhood, middle years and youth community coordinator with the United Way of Greater Moncton and Southeastern New Brunswick.

He says after reading the report, which was released last week, the first objective ofensuring asense of belongingis the goalhe immediately focused on.

Really what we're trying to do is to build resiliency.- Paul Toner, United Way of Greater Moncton youth co-ordinator

"Really what we're trying to do is to build resiliency," Toner told Information Morning Moncton.

"What we're trying to do is build strong kids that are able to have grit ... and to do well when circumstances are tough."

The report, which has been criticized for lacking details abouthow thegoalswill be achieved, says the objective of giving students a "strong sense of belonging" will be measured by reducing bullying and increasing the number of students who feel included at school.

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The report found that 29 per cent of students in grades 4-5 and 22 per cent of students in Grades 6-12 report moderate to severe bullying in school.

It goes on to say that20.7 per cent of Grade 6 students report feeling left out at school. The goal is to reduce those numbers to zero by the 2025 school year.

Toner says resiliency comes from a combination ofgood physical and emotional health along with strong social connections andengagement in learning.

"Resiliency andperseverancecan be taughtthere's anumberof factors but for us the one we zero in on, that is themostimportant,is being connected to positive people and to caring adults," he said.

'Integrated services model' will help

Education Minister Brian Kenny has struggledto give any examples of how the goals of the 10-year education plan will be accomplished.

"Right now I can't go into the specifics but I know we will be focused on literacy, numeracy and science moving into our technology sector and codingso there's going to be some differences, but right now at this point and time today there's been no direction," Kenny said in an interview on Friday.

Toner says people are right to want details from the provincial government, but community groups like his are already working to build a support network for children so teachers can focus on teaching.

He says part of the problem is that schools and teachers have become the "end point" for everything.

"[Teachers]have to be the psychologist for them, they have to be able to build their self-esteem, they have to be able to solve food issues for them ... teachers are feeling rightfully that we've loaded up the [education]system to try and solve everything."

Information Morning - Moncton10:48Youth and education

We talk with Paul Toner about what we are currently doing and what more we can do to invest in and support our youth.Toner says it is impossible to achieve learning outcomes without support from all government departments, something he hopes will improve as a new 'integrated services model' rolls out acrossNew Brunswick.

"The idea isthatwhen a kid is not able to succeed for any number of reasons and if itinvolvesmore than one department or one sector ... they're then able to say, 'Well let's get together as a team and somebody's going to follow through on the plan with them and see who needs to be connected with them.'"

Toner says with the community and all government departments working together progress can be made to accomplish the nine objectives in the education plan.

"If we do all those things together then maybe teachers have time to do two fundamental things, which is to build relationships with kids to know that they care and then to engage them in learning."