A message from the Principal

With the end of term (and the halfway point of the year) almost upon us, our semester one student reports are almost complete and will be distributed at the end of this week (Friday 28th June). 

Teachers have been working hard over the last few weeks to complete these reports as a record of personal, social and academic student progress & achievement against Victorian Curriculum standards.

We are using Compass to distribute student reports. On Friday afternoon, 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. 

The report you will receive will include the following information;

Victorian Curriculum Progression Points

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

These 'dots' allow you to see their overall achievement against expected standards for their age. This allows you to easily see whether they are working at, above or below age-expected benchmarks. Where applicable, the 'dashes' show the learning growth they have made since their previous school report. 

 To understand your child’s report better we recommend that you read the detailed descriptions of these standards and the content contained in the curriculum at each level, accessible at http://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/.

Personal Comment

It also provides a short personal comment from their teacher to tell you how they are as a class member - their behaviours, attitudes towards learning, achievements and personal skills.

Attendance

The report also includes data about your child's attendance at school and the number of times they have been late so far this year. If your child's attendance for this semester is lower than 90%, we seek your urgent support to improve this in the second half of this year.

Work Habits

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. 

In doing this, teachers were guided by the below descriptors and these will help you understand what 'excellent', 'very good', 'acceptable' or 'needs attention' mean in this context.

Effort

• Excellent- Always on task. Resilient.
• Very good- Rarely needs reminders to stay on task.
• Good- Sometimes needs reminders to stay on task
• Acceptable- Often needs redirection and reminders. Causes minimal distractions.
• Needs Attention- Very regularly shows little effort or needs regular reminders to complete tasks.

Behaviour

• Excellent- Never have to speak to them in relation to their behaviour.
• Very Good- Rarely (once a term) have to speak to them about their behaviour.
• Good- Sometimes (less than once a week) need to be spoken to about their behaviour
• Acceptable- Often (once or twice a week) needs reminders on behaviour expectations in class and around the school.
• Needs Attention- Very regularly (at least 3 times a week) needs reminders about how to behave.

Organisation

• Excellent- Starts tasks straight away. Manages belongings and daily routines without any adult support.
• Very good- Rarely needs reminders about daily routines. E.g. returning notes, bringing in take home book or home learning book.
• Good – Sometimes needs reminders about daily routines and belongings
• Acceptable- Often needs reminders about daily routines and encouragement to be organised.
• Needs Attention- Is consistently disorganised and often loses personal possessions such as hats, jumpers and lunch boxes.

Ongoing Reporting

You will notice that the end of semester reports are very brief. This is by design as they are intended as a short snap-shot of your child's achievement as we reach the halfway point of the year.

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 believe that allowing you to directly view your child's work and progress on Seesaw is the most effective way to involve you in their learning.

If you have not yet done so, we would encourage you to login to Seesaw and enjoy this portfolio alongside this report.

Later in the newsletter you will read about our upcoming Parent Teacher interviews and encourage you to make an appointment to meet with your child's teacher about their learning in the first half of the year.

I want to congratulate all of our students and families on such a great first half of the year. I hope that everyone stays warm and enjoys a break over the school holidays and I look forward to seeing everyone again at the start of term 3.

Neil Scott

Principal