From the Teaching and Learning Deputy

Parent Survey information

Thank you to the many parents who shared their thoughts last term about our reporting processes and iPad program at St Paul. We received a pleasing number of responses and are so appreciative of your support in ensuring our school is meeting your needs. Below is a brief summary of what was shared by parents and how this will form part of our plan for reporting and iPads at St Paul moving forwards.

Reporting

The overwhelming majority of parents who contributed shared that they were happy with our reporting processes this year. 

The most valuable method of reporting was Parent Teacher Learning Conversations, followed by Seesaw posts and written report comments. This has been validating of our reporting structure this year, where we prioritised the additional round of Parent Teacher Learning Conversations in Term 3 and more rigorous Seesaw posts in the place of the Term 2 report comments and some of the Term 4 report comments. Given this information, we will be using the same process and structure for reporting in 2025. We did hear from some parents that it would be helpful to  provide more clarity around what a C grade means, that some Seesaw posts could be easier to understand and that we could provide more feedback about achievement in English now that we don't have written comments or specific literacy skill grades in the English report. We have taken this feedback on board and will continue looking at how we can further enhance our reporting processes in these areas.

iPads

There were also clear trends in the data when it came to parents' feelings about iPads. We heard that you value these devices as a learning tool and were happy for us to restructure our approach in a way that will further benefit children's learning and prioritise their wellbeing. A significant majority of parents stated they would prefer devices to stay at school and to be school managed, including  management of apps on the devices and the removal of iMessage and FaceTime. In response to this feedback, as well as teacher feedback and expert advice, we have made some changes to our 2025 iPad program and you should have received a letter today outlining what these changes will be and how they will be implemented, starting from the end of this term.

We thank you for your partnership and your willingness to share your experience with us.