CIS Splash

Now all of the children have returned to school, it has been wonderful to see our playground full again with the learners across all year levels. In the classrooms, many have started their preparations for this year’s Collaborative Learning Conferences’ (CLC) formerly known as ‘Student Led Conferences’.  The name change has been due to the unique circumstances this year, where the parents had an increased role in the education of their children. 

As mentioned in my previous pieces, the school has an enormous amount of gratitude for the contribution that the parents make to the school community and the success of the children. The importance of this relationship is referenced in the school’s Mission within the GWPS Guiding Statements “Partnerships with students, parents and the community are nurtured and collaboration integral”.

The critical nature of this relationship cannot be underestimated.  John Hattie, world renowned researcher on education, has written that involvement from parents in their child’s learning results in over a year’s growth in a child’s academic development in the space of just 12 months. Whilst this year has been remarkably different and parents have made a much larger contribution, it is an important idea to acknowledge. It also connects strongly to the concept of the CLC and how important this is for the child’s development in their learning and the parents understanding of their achievement and growth. 

Another important piece of Hattie’s research in education to be considered regarding the significance of the CLC and the connection to academic growth is the student evaluation and reflection. The entire concept of CLC’s is built around the students reflecting what they have learned during Semester One.  According to Hattie, through effective evaluation and reflection on learning, a child can experience up to nearly two years of academic growth in the space of 12 months! That is a mind-boggling statistic which cannot ignored when ensuring the growth of all children across the school.  Strong reflections can be supported by asking the following questions:

• What did you learn?
• Why is this skill important to learn?
• Where might you use this skill in the real word?
• Can this skill be transferred to other concepts, ideas or subjects?
• What struggle did you have during this learning and how did you overcome them?

As you can see, the CLC provide an incredible platform to ensure your child/children continues to develop academically, so it is vital that we take this time to celebrate their achievements and reflect on many of the challenges we have overcome together this year. The children are putting a great deal of effort and thought into their portfolios this year and are always excited to sharing their learning journey with their parents.  We look forward to continuing our collaborative partnerships with students, parents and teachers next week and hearing all the stories of success from a truly unique year. 

If you would more information of the research of John Hattie and the impact of different strategies on learning, it can be found at the following website, https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/, or alternatively by scanning the below QR code.