Located in Hamamatsu City, Japan, Seirei Christopher Elementary School (SCES) embraces a Japanese-English immersion program and strives to foster compassionate, independent thinkers prepared for the
global stage.
Being a bilingual school in Japan, SCES faced a unique set of challenges in their journey towards collaboration amongst their teachers, planning, and building a closer community.
The challenge: Too many systems further complicated by two different working languages.
As with most progressive schools today, the team at SCES were juggling four to five disconnected platforms that complicated work for everyone involved. Chris shares, “ Before the school had Toddle, we were on multiple platforms. We had a platform for planning, a platform for communicating with the parents, a different platform for showing pictures and the learning in class, and another platform for all our policies and working documents.”
Language barriers further added to SCES’s challenges.
“We had some platforms which had English as an operating language, and then other platforms which had Japanese as the operating language,” elaborates Chris.
“One of the biggest challenges we faced was that there wasn’t a shared language. All our policies and key guiding documents were kept on a Japanese platform. So it was very hard for our international teachers or teachers who weren’t so proficient in Japanese to know where to find these things. Likewise, our Japanese-speaking teachers found it challenging to navigate platforms like Google Classroom which were available only in English.”
The solution: Toddle’s all-in-one platform built for the PYP, was available in both Japanese and English.
Toddle centralised all essential tools for SCES, from curriculum planning and assessment to reporting and parent communication, in one place.
Chris explains, “We’ve gone from using four to five different platforms to everything being streamlined on Toddle, and we’ve seen several key positive impacts immediately. For teachers, simply being able to do all their work in one place and in the language of their choice was a powerful ability, and addressed a key concern – collaborating effectively.”
Impact 1: Planning became more structured and collaborative
With Toddle in place, unit planning and building learning experiences could now happen seamlessly in one place. Chris points out, “The pre-built planning templates ensured that the structure of our unit plans was consistent across grades and in full alignment with the PYP.”
“We could also collaborate in real time and a lot more seamlessly throughout the planning process, in English and Japanese. This kind of flexibility ensured that every teacher on the team could make meaningful contributions to the planning process.”
Impact 2: Adherence to IB and National standards became seamless
SCES follows a curriculum that blends the Japanese public school curriculum with PYP scope and sequence. Adhering to this became much simpler with the switch to Toddle.
“Toddle included both sets of scopes and sequences in the planner, tailored exactly to our needs, in both Japanese and English. When we’re integrating various strands into the learning experiences within units, everything is clearly organised and accessible in both languages for the entire team.”
Impact 3: Streamlined, multilingual reports helped connect better with bilingual families
Teachers could easily collect student data and generate reports in both English and Japanese within Toddle. “One of the greatest impacts of Toddle is how much time it saves our teachers when writing progress reports.”
“Before, some of our teachers would write their comments in English, some others in Japanese, and we would end up spending hours ensuring consistency.”
“With Toddle, we could now write our progress reports in English, and with a click of a button, Toddle automatically translated them to Japanese!”
“This has helped us communicate so much more effectively with families without putting in tedious work.”
Impact 4: Centralised documentation led to smooth & successful IB Authorisation
“Before Toddle, our evidence was scattered across 4-5 different systems which would have been a mess to present. But with Toddle, we could capture all our evidence in one place, and organise and share it on one clean dashboard that already had the PYP standards and sequences built in. This made the whole authorisation process go off without a hitch.”
Chris summarised these impacts well, “Toddle has streamlined everything. We went from multiple platforms and languages to one central hub for planning, assessment, and parent communication. It’s changed how we work and learn!”
A happier and more collaborative school
Seirei Christopher Elementary School’s journey with Toddle highlights how the right tech system can be the small hinge that swings open a big door.
By embracing a unified platform like Toddle, SCES has created a more collaborative, inclusive, and seamless working environment for its entire community. Here’s hoping their recent successful PYP authorization is just one of the many milestones ahead!
