Reports

On Monday, you will receive your child’s school reports. A News Feed will be posted on Compass when these are available. It will include instructions on how to access your child's reports.

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 – Grade 6 will receive a Semester Report.

What: These reports share your child’s key results and progress in class and specialist subjects, 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.

2. Student Performance Reports

Who: All students in Prep – Grade 6 will receive a Student Performance Report this term.

What: These reports always cover English and Mathematics. This term they also include General Ability results for Grades 2 – 5. These General results are quite fascinating and identify your child’s reasoning abilities in three categories. We encourage you to read about this test on p.3 of your child’s Student Performance Report. The General Ability Test is not included on Prep and Grade 1 reports as the test is not made for these age groups. It is also not included on Grade 6 reports as these students have been very busy preparing for transition. These classes will have their Personal & Social Learning (The Big 10) results from earlier in the year displayed instead.

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

Why: We approach learning like a doctor would. We do regular check-ups to see how your child is progressing in key learning areas. These check-ups are what is shown on your child’s Student Performance Report. We check to see if they are on track with their results and that they all (regardless of starting point) are making the expected growth. Doing regular checks ensures that we can identify if progress is going off track and intervene early. We believe it is vitally important to share this information with parents, hence we created Student Performance Reports. They contain additional pages (not shown) that explain each check-up and the expected scores for each term. We strongly encourage you to read the additional pages.

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 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 Performance Reports, 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 this time last year. 

Each level links to a matching grade level:

• A student at the end of Grade 1 is expected to have their dot at the end of Level 1, 
• A student at the end of Grade 2 is expected to have their dot at the end of Level 2, etc.

In the picture below, this child is achieving at the end of Grade 2 standard in all areas. The white dots show where they were 12 months ago.

Q: Please see the picture below. Why is my child missing Reading – VC and Writing – VC?

A: In Victoria, students can be working on two different standards for English. One is the Victorian Curriculum (VC). This 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’s results are missing, this is because their teacher has identified them as a student who is learning English as an Additional Language. 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 Grade 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 the 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. If you want to find out your child’s level on the EAL continuum of learning, please check their Semester Report. You will find their results in a table that looks like the one below.

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

A: Please make contact with your child’s teacher early in 2021 to discuss this and agree on a plan to support your child. Over the holidays, you can continue to enable their learning by: 

• Reading regularly (the Summer Reading Challenge is a great way to do this!)
• Visiting your local library
• Writing letters and cards to friends
• Having family discussions to develop speaking and listening skills
• 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.)
• Encouraging arts and crafts to improve fine-motor skills
• Keeping fit and active to enhance gross-motor skills.

We encourage students to enjoy device-free time over the break. Students should not be accessing any of the school apps at home (e.g. Reading Eggs, Accelerated Reader, Maths Invaders). Over the holidays, students do not have homework (e.g. Mathseeds, Mathletics). They certainly should not 'binge' on our online programs to reach benchmarks as we have seen small numbers of families do in the past. The much-loved programs will be there for students when school resumes in 2021 and our staff will be ready to support your child in making progress.

Q: I have a question about my child's report. Who can I ask?

A: Please get in contact with your child's class teacher early in the week. Given the current climate, the best contact method is email. Depending on the nature of your question, your child's teacher might then respond to your email directly or give you a call to discuss your question.