Innovative Learning Fund (anglophone sector)
In June 2007, the Government of New Brunswick unveiled When kids come first, an ambitious plan to build the best education system in the country.
A signature project of When kids come First was the establishment of an Innovative Learning Fund (ILF) to encourage, facilitate, recognize and reward innovative and creative instructional approaches that will increase student learning and academic performance, and enhance teaching practices.
Through the Innovative Learning Fund any teacher, school, or school district in the New Brunswick public education system may submit a proposal for funding (up to $40,000) to support an innovative educational project to be offered to students.
The Innovative Learning Fund provides teachers with the resources they need to develop and test their innovative teaching ideas for their projects. It gives teachers the opportunity to share their best teaching practices with other educators so that new and exciting leaning environments can be created for students.
All projects approved for funding must focus on improving student academic performance, enhance teaching practices and have a clear connection to one of the three NB3 themes: Literacy, Numeracy, or Science.
There are three levels of funding available:
- Tier 1 - up to $2,500 per project. Projects are mostly single classroom initiatives.
- Tier 2 - up to $20,000 per project. Projects must involve multiple classrooms or multiple schools in one or more schools or districts. Twenty-five percent of the total project costs must be provided by 3rd party partners.
- Tier 3- up to $40,000 per project. Projects must involve multiple classrooms in multiple schools and/or districts. Twenty percent of total project costs must be provided by 3rd party partners.
Each Innovative Learning Fund project should be developed through the kind of dialogue and collaboration that is currently being promoted by professional learning communities; and it is hoped that the Innovative Learning Fund as a whole will acknowledge and address the entire continuum of learners that exists in our neighbourhood schools and communities.
To date, the Innovative Learning Fund has contributed over $6 million to 613 projects in the Anglophone sector.
