A message from the Principal

For the last few weeks, our teachers have been very busy writing your child’s end of year student report. These will be made available to parents and carers via Compass on Tuesday 17th December.

Please note: COMPASS access will be cut-off on December 20th for those students leaving SKIPPS at the end of this year.  Please ensure you download or print any School Reports and other information you require from COMPASS before this date.   

When reading this report, you will notice that it provides you with a clear understanding of your child's current performance against the 'progression points' of the Victorian Curriculum.

These 'dots' and 'dashes' allow you to see their overall achievement against expected standards for their age across the curriculum and also the growth they have made since their previous report. This allows you to see whether they are working at, above or below age-expected benchmarks.

A new Maths Curriculum

When you read your child's report, you might notice a change in the way that we report Maths and that there will be no 'dashes' to allow you to understand the growth they have made this semester.

This is due to the introduction this year of the new Victorian Curriculum 2.0 in Maths. As students are being taught (and assessed against) a new curriculum with a very different structure, it is not possible to compare the two in this way.

In the previous curriculum, Mathematics was assessed across three strands: Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics and Probability. Under the updated curriculum, these strands have been refined into six areas: Number, Algebra, Measurement, Space, Statistics, and Probability.

In line with this change, our reporting will now reflect a single progression point for Mathematics. This progression point is designed to provide a holistic view of your child’s development across all areas of Mathematics.

Work Habits

The report also provides a personal comment from their teacher to tell you how they are as a class member - their behaviours, attitudes towards learning and personal skills. Class teachers have also provided a grade for your child's 'Work Habits' - the behaviours that we see consistently around their effort, behaviour and organisation in the classroom.

Also included in the report is your child's attendance for the whole year - indicating the number of times they were late and their overall attendance percentage. Once again this year, overall we have had too many students missing large parts of the school year and this is proven to have a negative impact on learning and, ultimately, educational outcomes.

For those students who had more than a handful of late arrivals or an attendance percentage below 90%, we strongly encourage families to aim for better in 2025. It is so important that your child is at school as often as possible and on time - learning begins at 9am and every day counts. All available research shows that children with good school attendance and punctuality have better long-term outcomes than children with a high level of lateness and absenteeism.

Seesaw

As with the mid-year reports sent home in June, when it comes to details about your child’s learning this year, instead of writing lengthy comments in this report, teachers and students have been busy using 'Seesaw' to share examples of learning and create a portfolio of photos, videos and audio and written comments. 

We strongly believe that allowing you to view your child's learning and progress on Seesaw is the most effective way to involve you in their learning. If you have not logged in recently, we would encourage you to do so and enjoy this portfolio alongside this report.

Early in 2025, we will run parent-teacher interviews and information evenings to discuss their learning goals in more depth and provide ways that you can support learning at home. We encourage you to participate in these important events.

On Tuesday 17th, parents will receive an email notification that semester reports are now available to view on Compass. 

Please access https://skipps-vic.compass.education/ and use your personalised login details to access reports.

Neil Scott

Principal