Leadership Report

Nearing the end of term and maximising your child's report

The end of term and the halfway point of the year is almost upon us. 

For me personally, the last 8 weeks since beginning at Marion have felt like a bit of a blur and have whizzed past, but in the most positive of ways and in a time that I have totally loved and enjoyed! 

It is frightening to think the halfway point of the year is almost upon us and it has been such a busy yet incredibly productive time in all of our classrooms! We have seen so much development and improvement in the learning of all students at our school. 

In Week 10, half-yearly reports will be coming home to all families that will provide information to you about the learning and progress of your child/ren. Over the past few weeks, teachers have been working incredibly hard to compile this information and write these progress reports for you. The reports provide a great opportunity for you to sit with your child/ren and commence conversations about their work so far and set targets or goals for the second half of the year with them. 

Below I've included some ideas and helpful tips that are intended to guide these conversations and continue building a growth mindset in your children that will stretch them to be the best they can be:

When providing praise or recognition, look for some of the following: effort, progress, hard work, persistence, learning from mistakes, or rising to a challenge that may have seen them initially struggle. Try to avoid just giving praise for being smart, talented, fixed abilities, or not making mistakes. Mistakes are a very important part of the learning process and something you can talk positively about with your child. 'Mistakes help you improve', 'you can learn from your mistakes', or 'let's see what other strategies you can try' are some ways you can approach this.

The power of 'yet' is also another great way to give students belief and confidence that with persistence and continued effort, they will continue to improve and work towards their goals. 'You just can't do it yet' or 'You just don't know it yet' are effective ways to continue to build belief and a positive mentality towards their learning, even when things are challenging. Challenges in learning are a positive thing and should be seen and talked about this way...they help us to think deeply and work hard to find solutions to overcome them. 

It is very important to open as many avenues as possible with your child to speak about their learning. This should happen daily and can go a lot deeper than 'what did you do today?' or 'how was your day at school?'. Instead, try questions like; 'what did you do today that made you think really hard?', 'what new strategies did you try?', 'what mistakes did you make that taught you something?', or 'what did you do or try today that you didn't think you could yesterday?'. 

I hope families have many positive and meaningful conversations that continue supporting all of our children in their learning journey and progression. 

I would like to wish all families a great final couple of weeks of term. 

Warm regards,

Guy Walmsley

Principal