The Learning Page

This week you received your child’s Semester Report and Student Dashboard. At SMPS, you receive two types of reports throughout the year. We want our families to understand each update that they receive, so here is a quick overview of each one.

1. Semester Reports. 

Who: All students in Prep – Year 6 receive a Semester Report.

What: These reports share your child’s key results and progress, highlight your child’s attendance and contain a personal comment from the teacher about your child. 

When: These reports come out twice a year - at the end of Term 2 and the end of Term 4.

Why: These are our formal school reports and are mandated for all schools in Victoria. The reports include subject descriptions, marks against the Victorian Curriculum and a general comment from your child's teacher. They also provide an insight into how your child is progressing in specialist classes.

2. Student Dashboards.

Who: All students in Prep – Year 6 receive a Student Dashboard.

What: These reports cover English, Mathematics and Personal & Social Learning.

When: These are published at the end of each term.

Why: We believe it is important to be transparent about how your children are achieving and progressing at school. Dashboards allow families the opportunity to see many of the assessment results that students have achieved in class, along with program targets. Dashboards help our families be informed and involved to a deeper level than the Victorian School Report typically allows.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I can’t open my child’s report. Please help!

A: Here are a few things to try:

• Check that you are logged in to your parent Compass account. If you are logged in to Compass as your child, you won’t be able to see reports. Please call the office if you don’t know your Compass login.
• Ensure you are on a computer. Reports are not fully supported on some mobile devices.

If you have tried the above steps, please contact your child’s teacher for assistance.

Q: I don’t understand the black dots on my child’s Semester Report. Can you explain them?

A: The dots show you the standard that your child reached when teachers combined all information available to them (including Student Dashboards, additional assessments and observations in class). Your child’s achievements are represented by a solid black dot. If your child was with us last year, you will also see a white dot that reflects their achievement from the end of last year. 

Each level links to a matching grade level:

• A student halfway through Year 1 is expected to have their dot halfway through Level 1, 
• A student halfway through Year 2 is expected to have their dot halfway through Level 2. 

In the picture below, this child is achieving at the expected Year 2 standard in all areas of English. The white dots show where they were 6 months ago.

Q: Why does my child's Reading and Writing mark say 'English as an Additional Language'? Why is there no colour for this?

A: In Victoria, students can be working on two different standards for English. One is made for students who are proficient with English in the areas of reading, writing, speaking and listening. The other is for students who are learning English as an Additional Language (EAL). 

If your child has been identified as unable to achieve the expected level of the English Curriculum due to learning English as an Additional Language, this will be indicated on their report and Dashboard. Each child’s journey towards learning English is very different. There are no age-expected standards as people begin learning English at different ages. For example, one student in Year 3 may have just arrived in Australia and be learning basic words in English, whereas another student in the same class has been learning English for a few years, is almost fluent and is fine-tuning details like tenses and plurals. Both are at very different levels, but both levels are appropriate given their backgrounds. It is therefore not possible to colour code these results as they vary based on each child’s life story. 

Q: My child is behind in an area. What can I do?

A: Please check in with your child’s teacher during Parent-Teacher-Student Interviews to discuss this and agree on a plan to support your child. Over the holidays, you can continue to enable their learning by reading every day, writing letters and cards to friends, using maths when shopping (e.g. counting the number of objects you need, adding and subtracting items, calculating the total cost, estimating how much change you will receive, etc.).

Q: Why does my child's previous Music/Dance/Drama dot say 12 months, not 6?

A: Our students currently alternate between one semester of Music and one semester of Dance and Drama. If your child has Music in their report this semester, they will have Dance and Drama in Semester 2's Report (and vice versa). This means that one year (12 months) will pass before students receive their next mark.