The idea
Why Sideroad exists
Every student, same destination. The class is headed for one place, and some students take a sideroad to get there.
The problem it is for
Most of your class is meeting the provincial standard. You are still expected to get it right for every one of them. The room is fuller than it used to be, and there are fewer hands to help. A good part of every day goes to keeping the class running, not to teaching.
So the planning moves to your evenings. One lesson becomes several versions, each made by hand, each with its own answer key. The classroom teacher and the Learning Support Teacher write the IEP together; the hard part is the step between that plan and the paper on each desk. Sideroad is that step.
Why it is called Sideroad
Rural Ontario is laid out in concessions and sideroads. A sideroad leaves the main road and still arrives somewhere.
Here the somewhere is the curriculum expectation. Some students take a sideroad, but we all get to the same place. No sheet goes out without its destination printed on it.
Who it is for
Ontario elementary teachers
Anyone who teaches one lesson to a whole class and needs the paper to be right for each student in it. Sheets exist today for Mathematics: Number for Grades 1 to 4, and money for Grades 1 and 2.
Learning Support Teachers
Sheets that follow the accommodations and the working grade in the IEP, with the expectation code on each.
Built by two Ontario teachers
Sideroad is built by two Ontario teachers. One is an elementary Learning Support Teacher, who works with classroom teachers on IEPs and knows the gap between the plan and the paper on a student’s desk.
Closing that gap is what Sideroad is for, and they check the sheets it makes.
Student profiles stay on your device
A profile is a code or a nickname plus teaching settings. It is saved in this browser, on this device, and is never sent to us or to anyone else.
Sideroad has no accounts, no analytics and no advertising.