Celebrating Student Achievement

As we come to the end of the year teachers have been working hard writing the final school reports for 2021. Reporting time is always a great moment for teachers, parents and students to stop and reflect on student learning across a variety of areas. As well as looking at academics it is always important to consider a holistic approach to student learning. School is an environment where we seek to nurture the whole child. While we always strive for high academic achievement for all students, there are some important things to think about and consider beyond the lens of A to E grading when we look at student growth and reporting:

• Development is malleable.

• Variability in student development is the norm, not the exception.

• Human relationships are the essential ingredient that catalyses healthy development and learning.

• Adversity affects learning- the Covid 19 Pandemic of the last two years has affected elements of school and learning for many students in different ways. Many students can face having to navigate a range of different social, emotional or academic challenges in a school year.

• Learning is social and emotional, as well as academic.

• Children actively construct knowledge based on their experiences, relationships, and social contexts.

• Children all have different strengths and talents and diversity is to be celebrated.

Focusing on Growth

Students don’t always remember how far they’ve come over the year. For some of our students who may learn and think differently, they may sometimes have trouble seeing their strengths when it comes to school. When we praise students for their growth, we help them remember or see it themselves. This can help motivate them to continue learning and growing.

Everyone learns at a different pace. We should not be penalising students who may have had a difficult foundational experience, may have experienced some trauma that caused a temporary dip, or just take more time to learn something new. Teaching teams at St Mary's live by the words of Lyn Sharrat that "Each student can achieve high standards given the right time and the right support"

Teachers who value growth:

- consistently update old assessment data with new and more accurate results

- give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate achievement, not just one test on one day.

- teachers require students to continually practice essential content and demonstrate retention of that content.

Learning does not stop after an assessment. An assessment isn’t a final judgment, it’s a progress marker.

Teachers work with students to develop a learning partnership that tells students “I will not give up on you just because you don’t know how to do something yet.” They work as a collaborative co-teaching team, stick to that statement, and work hard to tailor student learning activities to help students reach the next learning target. If a student or group of students scores below proficient on a standard assessment, teachers work together to break down the data to identify specific areas for targeted intervention and plan and deliver differentiated instruction to meet the needs of all students. Students are given individualised opportunities to practice and are reassessed after they’ve learned more.

Parental partnerships are also vital to the growth and development of all students. Thank you to all parents and carers for the wonderful job you do to support learning at St Mary's as we continue to work as a Christ-centred inclusive learning community- home, school and parish together.

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