Last term I shared in the newsletter how we were changing the ways that we report your child's learning progress to you.

Instead of the lengthy written reports at the end of each semester in June and December, our teachers and students were instead going to be using the Seesaw online platform to regularly share photos, videos and comments about learning at SKiPPS.

The idea behind this change was to provide greater involvement and understanding for you in your child's learning during the school year and to allow students to take pride and ownership in their hard work at school.

Whilst a formal report will still be sent home at the end of each semester, this would be a much shorter document, mainly allowing you to understand how your child is performing against the achievement standards of he Victorian Curriculum.

It has been an absolute delight to watch these online portfolios of student learning take shape so far this year and it has been great to see how many parents have logged in and interacted with their child's learning - leaving 'likes' or comments and records of the discussions they have had at home.

The teachers and students have shown real creativity in how they are sharing and recording their in-class learning. For example, after their recent school camp, the Year 5/6 students looked through the photos taken at camp and chose the one that represented something they enjoyed or were proud of. They uploaded this photo to Seesaw and shared a written comment to explain their choice. This was then added to by their class teacher.

Sharing reflections on school camp in this way has been really popular with the students and provides an insight to parents that we otherwise would not have been able to share.

Similarly, students in 5/6 also reflected on the progress they have made during their recent Maths unit on multiplication. They did this by creating and sharing a video of them doing something they could now do (but couldn't do before the unit began).

This was then added to by a spoken comment by their teacher.

Previously teachers would have had to try and take this great learning, effort and excitement and condense it down into a short sentence for inclusion in the school report (often a couple of months later). How wonderful that families now have direct access into the learning and can see the work that is being done and the progress made.

If you have not yet done so, I strongly encourage you to login to Seesaw and take a look at your child's learning portfolio as it takes shape and allows you to see how they are growing and learning at our school. Even better, sit down with your child and ask them to tell you all about it.

Neil Scott

Principal

SKiPPS Newsletter

Issue 5 · 28 Apr 2021

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