India Hook Elementary School is helping all students develop world-class skills, using life and career characteristics of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by encouraging innovation, creativity, collaboration, and problem solving. We are a school of about 620 students located in Rock Hill, SC. We opened our doors in 2007. We love our location nestled in a small neighborhood off of Twin Lakes Road.
This year, India Hook is piloting serving gifted and talented students by area of gift. Meaning, children qualified as gifted in mathematics receive the majority of their minutes in advanced mathematics instruction while children qualified as gifted in reading receive the majority of their minutes in advanced reading instruction. Children qualified as gifted in both reading and mathematics are served thoroughly in both areas.
This increased differentiation benefits the students in two major ways. Foremost, twice exceptional students receive the gifted curriculum in the area in which they have demonstrated readiness for it. This allows them to be in their homerooms for grade level, or below grade level intervention, in the area that they need. A second benefit is for students that are gifted in both areas. They are not sacrificing minutes in one area to get served in the other. This group is receiving about 60% more instruction in each of the areas mathematics and reading.
Additionally, each grade level cohort meets for another hour each week to build community and problem solving skills. We focus on critical and creative thinking skills independent from mathematics and reading content. This benefits children that have qualified via nonverbal identification. It is often hard to reach nonverbal gifted children in traditional mathematics or reading classes and this schedule allows us to do just that.
India Hook started implementing PBIS last year and has added some great things for the 2017-2018 school year. IHES has established norms for around the school with the acronym CREW (Creating a positive community, Respect each other, Excel everyday, and Work hard). Posters are put up around the school and classrooms to help students remember their responsibilities. Students can get rewarded monthly with CREW t-shirts and weekly with CREW shout outs for being caught doing something above and beyond. Third through fifth grade receives honor role cards and Chick-fil-a gift cards when demonstrate excellent academic performance. The school has looked at behavior as a whole and made some changes to create a more positive environment. We have seen great improvements in student and staff interactions due to these efforts.
“The Pirate’s Way Motor Learning Lab” is used to provide students the opportunity to fill the gaps left from deficiencies in their early developmental years. It also benefits all students by allowing them the chance to connect cognitive skills with psychomotor skills. The lab uses cross-lateralization activities to assist with reading left to right. It also offers many balance activities to assist with spatial orientation, which helps the students in sorting words, letters, shapes, numbers, etc. on a page. Teachers are given time slots for them to bring their entire class to practice reading while working in the stations. Teachers can also identify students who need extra support in filling the developmental gaps, which creates more pathways in the brain and aids in learning new information. These identified students will have a volunteer assist them in the stations at certain times throughout the week. Fitness components are addressed as students work on Flexibility, Cardio-Respiratory Endurance, Muscular Strength and Endurance. Therefore, students will be able to improve their overall health as well as making connections in the brain.
This year during their 20 minute Physical Education classes, students had an emphasis on the Health-Related Fitness Components (Cardio-Respiratory Endurance, Body Composition, Muscular Strength, Muscular Endurance and Flexibility) so the skill-related lessons also had a focus on fitness. This is in addition to their weekly 45 minute Physical Education classes.