A message from the Principal

Half way through the school year.

With Term 2 drawing to a close, we would normally be getting ready to send out mid-year reports this week. These reports have traditionally provided a few pieces of important information to families;

 

  • Victorian Curriculum progression points (assigned by their class teacher) to allow parents to see how their child is performing against age-expected statewide standards and to understand their growth since the last reports in December.
  • Teacher rating on behaviour, effort and organisation
  • Semester attendance data
  • Teacher comments on a child’s time in class so far this year - personal, social and emotional
  • Teacher comments on academic achievement.

In 2021, our move towards regularly ongoing reporting and sharing work samples and portfolios of student learning on Compass (along with regular teacher comments) mean that these end of semester reports will be shorter and not contain the comments about student learning (as this has already been provided via Compass alongside actual examples of the learning being done and the progress being made).  

In addition, the recent 2 week lockdown came along at the time of the term when teachers would be conducting a wide range of assessments to get a deep understanding of each child’s performance and growth over the course of the term.

 

These ‘teacher judgements’ of each child’s academic achievement are so important this year as they are our first real opportunity to fully understand the impact of last year’s extended remote learning and how children have bounced back in 2021.

 

As a staff we were understandably reluctant to complete our reports and send out this indication of each child's achievement without being able to complete the assessments we had planned. Doing this would have increased the possibility of inaccurate judgements being made and therefore important actions being missed next semester.

We are therefore happy that the Education Department have updated their guidelines to schools to allow all government schools to take their time and send these reports home in the first weeks of next term. 

 

This has allowed us to take the time to welcome children back into school and complete the neccesary work and assessments of each student. Teacher judgements will be finalised at the start of term 3 before reports are sent home to parents on Friday 23rd July (week 2 of term). 

 

These reports will be followed by parent teacher interviews in week 3 of term to allow teachers and parents to discuss each child’s progress and their learning goals for the rest of the school year.        

 

 

Neil Scott

Principal