WHEELERS HILL PRIMARY SCHOOL

Assistant Principal's Report

Leasyl Richards - Curriculum

14th June 

REPORTING

Teachers have been working hard over the last few weeks writing the Semester 1 reports.  These will be available for parents to access via Compass on Wednesday 26th June.

 

Our reports follow the Victorian Curriculum and cover Learning Areas which address the key subjects within the curriculum. The semester one reports cover the Learning Areas of

English

  • Reading and Viewing
  • Speaking and Listening
  • Writing

Mathematics

  • Measurement and Geometry
  • Number and Algebra
  • Statistics and Probability

Our Inquiry Curriculum covers a two year cycle which is reported on for Years 3-6 students.

For Semester 1 2019 our Inquiry units are

*The Arts (Media Arts) and

* The Humanities (History)

 

Specialist subjects reported on are:

* Health and Physical Education

* Visual Arts

* Performing Arts (Dance, Drama and Music)

* Languages Other Than English (French or Mandarin)

* EAL (English as an Additional Language) for those students who receive this support

 

The Learning Capabilities address the key transferable skills and understandings essential to all areas of learning. This semester we will report on the Personal and Social Capabilities

 

Accessing your child's report

Once you have logged in to Compass, you will see View Academic Reports. If you have more than one child, this button will appear under each of their names. You can then click on the appropriate link and the report will download to your computer. You can then save, print, email or view the report. The report is attached to your Compass account and is accessible for as long as your child is at Wheelers Hill Primary School. The only people who can view your child’s report are you and the staff at the school.

 

 Interpreting the report

Your child's achievements in each subject area is represented in graphical form. The solid dot represents your child’s current level of achievement. The non-solid dot shows your child’s level of achievement for 6 months previously. The yellow bank indicates the expected level of achievement.

 

Interpreting the marks

Many subject areas have multiple strands. In the case of English and Maths, you see the mark for each of these. In all other subjects you see an aggregate of the scores. The DET reporting system will always round these scores up. If, for example your child receives 3.5 for Science Understanding and 4.0 for Science Inquiry, they will receive a mark of 4.0, which is equal to the end of Year 4.

For parents of Prep students.

The Department only allows us to place a mark for 0.5 and beyond. Some prep students take longer than 6 months to get to that point.  If this is the case for your child, you will see there is no dot recorded.  We acknowledge that they are on the continuum they are just not yet at 0.5. Your child’s teacher will have already spoken to you if this applies to your child.

 

If you have any queries or questions regards the reports or the reporting process please don’t hesitate to email me .

 

ASSESSMENT

The Assessment Schedule at WHPS outlines assessment tasks that teachers will undertake throughout the year. It allows for opportunities for teachers to assess the students in their class in a variety of different ways and at various times throughout the semester.  It has a balance of formative (standardised tests) and summative tasks (pre and post tests to determine teaching focuses for the next step for student learning)  and includes scope for teachers to make anecdotal observations of students work done in class. Utilising a range of assessment practices is a vital component in improving student learning. Detailed assessment methods provide teachers with evidence that highlights both student strengths and areas that require further improvement.

It is important to realise that student learning does not always follow a perfectly linear pattern. Children’s learning can often be staggered, with periods of rapid development and periods of consolidation reflecting children’s typical intellectual growth and development.

Having consistent and common assessment practices across the school also means teachers can confidently place students on the Victorian Curriculum continuum and means that teachers at our school are using the same assessment programs and tasks resulting in reliability in student results  from year to year.

All student results are placed onto our data collection tool SPA (Student Performance Analyser) which allows us to analyse student results across the range of assessment tasks and student growth.

 

ICAS

Just a reminder that if you wish for your child to participate in ICAS testing this year you will need to pay via the ICAS portal

Visit https://pay.unswglobal.com.au/

Our school's unique access code is: a105d69048

 

Please refer to the ICAS notification in Compass for further details. 

 

PREMIERS READING CHALLENGE

Wow!  269 students have completed the Challenge so far- this represents 44% of our students.  Congratulations to all of our fantastic readers.

 

Leasyl Richards

richards.leasyl.a@edumail.vic.gov.au