We know that most of you open your child’s report, look at the ticks, get excited or maybe disappointed, in regard to whether they are better than last report, read the general comment, and then hopefully share the report with your child and tell them how proud they should be of all of their efforts. This is not a bad start, however there is much more to your child’s report, so we hope this explanation will help you to get more out of the eleven pages, that we all put a lot of time into preparing for you, for you to have as much knowledge as possible about your child’s learning across the past semester.
Page 2 of the report has the Principal’s message that does include an important message about the purpose of the Student Report and a reminder that ‘the report has not been designed to compare child against child, but to reflect individual application and achievement based upon continuous monitoring of schoolwork, assessments and other set tasks for this specific semester’. This is an important point... grades are based on the past semester of work only and it is not unusual for a child’s progress to fluctuate from semester to semester but obviously we always aim for overall progress to be on an upward trajectory every year.
The bottom part of Page 2, has the Keys to understanding both the application grade and academic grades, where the specific descriptions are those from the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) and will help you to understand how academic grades are allocated.
Page 3 of the reports has the Learner Dispositions, Character & Personal Development outcomes and the allocated tick based on the evidence of how often your child demonstrates each outcome. I wrote about this section in the Week 5 newsletter, linked here. The Learner Dispositions, Character & Personal Development outcomes are deliberately placed toward the front of the report because of the importance we place on these dispositions, maximising these to achieve the best possible academic outcomes.
The General Comment is the personalised comment for your child from their teachers, and we hope that you will read this with your child, help them to understand anything they don’t understand and remind them of how incredibly proud you and we are of their progress, as they should be too.
The very important academic outcomes derived from the Key Learning Areas (KLA) populate the next 7 pages. The blurbs for each of these include the rationale for each KLA, how the many outcomes are grouped to determine the grades, the themes for student learning across the semester and finally the tables with the grades your child has achieved in this particular semester against the specific outcomes.
Every grade is assigned by your child’s Teaching Team (listed on Page 3) who collaborate, discuss, challenge each other, assess further and finally allocate grades based on numerous pieces of evidence of your child’s learning.
It is important to remember the following points to understand your child’s academic achievements:
- All of our high achievers are quite tough on themselves, so if they find there is a tick or two that could be higher, talk to them about how this creates a learning goal for them. In fact all areas for growth for all children can become learning goals.
- If your child earns a 3, this is at a competent level, where a child has sound knowledge and understanding of the concepts taught; to achieve a 3 a child is achieving grade expectation based on NESA requirements.
- If your child receives a 3 in one report, then a 3 in the next report, this means they have again achieved a competent level of skill in relation to new and more challenging material.
- Occasionally, a child’s progress will fluctuate but obviously we always aim for overall progress to be on an upward trajectory every year based on new and more challenging material.
For our data lovers and our parents who want to know how our students might compare with other schools, typically our Claremont students achieve very good results. Having read every single report over the past week the Executive Team can assure you that your children have all had a very successful semester of learning.
And as I said 2 weeks ago...
- Please remember to celebrate your child’s successes with them, and
- Don’t take the report personally, it is about your child who is a unique and precious individual.
And the child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. Luke 2:40
Some additional reading and resources I would recommend are as follows:
How To Talk To Your Child About Your Report: https://theconversation.com/how-to-talk-to-your-child-about-their-school-report-99640
Reading Your Child’s Report by Michael Gross: https://woononaest-p.schools.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/doe/sws/schools/w/woononaest-p/localcontent/1318008538107_19eb9eec3066ded601306c3bde82069c.pdf
Standards Based Assessing and Reporting: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGkXdCSHcGwbDKqWMXMfRZjSVzn?projector=1&messagePartId=0.1
The Bonsai Student: Why Modern Parenting Limits Children's Potential at School and Practical Strategies to Turn it Around, by Dr Judith Y Locke
Parent Teacher Interviews
These are coming up on Tuesday 15 June and we are thrilled to see that almost all of the time slots have been taken up. To prepare for these:
- Download and read your child’s report with your child.
- Along with your child, prepare a list of three things you (and your child) are proud of and three things that could be growth points, to bring to the meeting to share with your child’s teacher.
- Your child’s teacher will have some successes and growth points to share too but it will be time efficient to come prepared with your own ideas.
- Be on time as the teacher will not be able to go over time if you are late, but will be happy to meet with you on another occasion.
To streamline the P/T Interview process, these interviews will be held for all classes from 1:00pm-8:00pm. We will be offering both face-to-face meetings and Zoom meetings to cater for the needs and requests of all parents. Bookings for face-to-face meetings only will be between 1:00pm-4:00pm and held in the school hall. Bookings for Zoom meetings will be between 4:30pm-8:00pm only.
Please note students will be engaged in learning activities from 1:30pm-3:10pm, supervised by the Specialist Staff, Learning Support Staff and Teaching and Learning Assistants.
These interviews, which will be 10 minutes each for Years 1-6 and 15 minutes for Kindergarten, will give you an opportunity to discuss your child’s report with the Class Teacher.
Enjoy
It looks like it will be a sunny and cold (Sydney cold) first weekend of winter, perfect for family walks or bike rides, some winter gardening, a good book, a set of tennis or watching your children play sport from the side lines, or even on a screen. It will be The French Open for me. Whatever you do to relax with your friends and family, enjoy your weekend.
Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Ecclesiastes 9:7
Janelle Ford
Co-Principal
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Website: www.claremont.nsw.edu.au
Instagram: @claremontcollege
Twitter: @claremont2031
Image from Scratch Jnr
