What a Community School Approach Brings to Quebec’s English School Sector

Speakers:

• Debbie Horrocks, Director, Provincial Resource Team, Leading English Education and Resource Network (LEARN)
• Patricia Lamarre, Professor, Faculté des sciences de l’éducation, Université de Montréal
• Ben Loomer, Pedagogical Consultant and Project Coordinator, LEARN

It is increasingly recognized in educational research that student success is enhanced when schools are connected to their communities in ways that contribute to improved school climate and increased student engagement. This is even more relevant for Quebec’s English school sector, which introduced its own approach to community schooling in 2006: Community Learning Centres (CLCs). The network of CLC schools grew quickly and now has been adopted by more than 90 English schools across all regions of Quebec and in all English school boards.

This presentation looked at how the CLC network has worked with stakeholders to adopt a community school approach to better serve Quebec’s official language minority (OLM) population. Spoiler alert: it’s all about connections, connections, connections. The speakers provided many examples of the strategic wins and connections that have taken shape and identified some connections that still need to be made. They presented major accomplishments as well as setbacks and challenges and ended with a discussion on the question: Where to next for Quebec’s OLM community schools?

For more about CLC schools:

• visit LEARN’s website
• read QUESCREN’s working paper on the evolution of the CLC network in Quebec
• consult our blog post about the need for more research on the CLC network