Removing Barriers to High School Completion:
Student Orientation to School Program (SOS)
Motivating all students to complete high school is a serious challenge facing educational communities across Canada. While student achievement is an important indicator of success at school, recent research indicates that social and emotional factors can effect academic performance.
The Student Orientation to School Program has been specifically developed to address the issue of low high school completion rates. The program is designed to assist educators to identify students who may be at risk of not completing high school, and to provide support in the development of effective intervention strategies to help these students.
Program Description
The Student Orientation to School Program is a comprehensive, yet succinct assessment instrument that measures grade 4-12 students’ affective experience of school, and supports the early identification of students who may be at risk of high school non-completion. This Canadian-developed program captures social and emotional variables related to students’ comfort and bond with school including:- Socialization with teachers and peers.
- Perceived self-confidence in their own abilities and progress.
- Ability to be resilient and to adapt to challenges.
Program Components
The Student Orientation to School Program includes the following components: SOS Questionnaires, SOS Q Reports and SOS Q Program Manual.SOS Questionnaires (SOS Q)
- Two forms of the questionnaire are available:
- Upper-Elementary (Grades 4-6), 42 questions
- Junior-Senior High (Grades 7-12), 68 questions - Both questionnaires encompass the following factor-based constructs: Safe and Caring School, Self-Confidence, External Resilience, Internal Resilience and Peer Relationships
- The Junior-Senior High questionnaire includes four additional constructs: Extra-Curricular Activities, Utility of School, Work and School Integration and Handling Work – School Pressures
- Questionnaires are electronically scanned by the ETS Canada scoring service
- Results are structured around the factor-based sub-scales in the questionnaire
- Reports include both group and individual student data
- Custom score reports are available
SOS Q Program Manual Includes:
- Instructions for administering the questionnaires
- Information for interpreting student results
- Diagnostic and intervention strategies
Program Features
The Student Orientation to School Program is a pedagogically-valid and easily-accessible assessment framework that can be seamlessly integrated within any classroom setting.The program:
- Adds an affective dimension to student assessment in order to increase awareness of student needs
- Provides primary student-generated information that extends far beyond conventional satisfaction surveys
- Has been field-tested with over 18,000 students across Canada
- Provides both individual student and group data
- Is user friendly and take only 20 minutes to complete
- Is cost-effective since the questionnaires are scanned and the data is collected electronically
Program Applications
SOS is a dynamic program that supports ongoing improvement in the area of high school completion rates by highlighting a diverse range of school environments and student traits.The program can:
- Be used in conjunction with conventional data such as grades, attendance and high school completion
- Identify student populations’ attitudes towards school. (Data can be sorted for the school, by grade or by individual classes)
- Demonstrate how distinctive groups of students differ in their orientation to school
- Determine elements of a school’s environment that are valued the most and the least and by which groups of students (or individual students)
- Show how different groups of students (or individual students) assess their functional capabilities, which are key to success in and outside of school
- Identify the proportion of potentially at risk students who might need interventions
- Be used to support a variety of school improvement initiatives such as building safe and caring schools and bullying prevention
Getting Started with SOS
The Student Orientation to School Program is now fully-operational. Between May and October you can take advantage of our special launch price of $1.75 per student.This price includes:
- Questionnaires (sold in packages of 100)
- Program Manual (you receive 1 manual for every 100 questionnaires ordered)
- Scanning and scoring of questionnaires
- Summary reports for both groups and individual students
For more information on how to implement SOS in your school or district, contact Bill Allan, Director of Publishing at (416) 551 5337 or
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