Teaching and Learning

Term 3

Welcome back to term 3 our students have already been busy working in their classrooms and we look forward to showing you just what they have been learning this year at our SSG meetings this week. This issue of teaching and learning will focus on the SSG meeting expectations and the new look of our SLPs.

SSG Meetings

As you already know we offer SSG meetings across the school to discuss your child’s progress so far, their goals for the next semester, any concerns you might have and the success your child has experienced at school. These are offered after school and in the evening to allow parents who work to have access to these meetings. We whole heartedly believe that these meetings are extremely important as they allow us to build a strong working relationship with our parent community and that by working together your child has the greatest chance for success. Do make sure you take up the opportunity to work with your child’s classroom teacher. If you are having difficulty attending on the date for these interviews please contact your classroom teacher to organise for an alternative timeslot. Teachers will endeavour to be flexible but they will not be able to offer alternative night time meetings as their working day concludes at 3.45 on non-meeting nights.

Report Format

As you are aware our Student Learning Plans (SLPs) have a very different format this year. The introduction of the Victorian Curriculum where content is designed for students working at pre foundation level all the way up to level 10 has allowed us to be much more specific in the goals that we are setting. We want our students to work through this curriculum at their point of entry. In order to support them and measure their achievement we have designed goals that very specifically target their point of entry on the curriculum. If they are counting numbers to 20, we want to make sure that their goal matches the next developmental progression in their learning. We wanted to ensure that the goals not only matched the students’ point of entry, but also, that the targets were measureable, achievable and time-framed. It is for this reason that we have reset the goals for the second semester. If a goal was not met, a goal may have been retained for the second half of the year but this has only happened if it is something that we still believe will be achievable and relevant for the student.

 

As this is the first time that we have set goals in this way and used measureable evidence to find the students point of entry, it has not always been possible to set the perfect goal. Our teachers are working extremely hard to find targets for their students that are achievable but that will also be challenging and this has meant that we are not yet always correct in our determination of a goal. We are working hard to ensure best practice and we encourage you to discuss any concerns during the SSG meetings. We have determined that six goals in learning areas was excessive and have reduced the core areas to four goals for semester two as a result of this discovery. 

 

We have also changed the assessment indicators. Due to parent feedback we assessed what we had done and felt it would be better to have achievement levels displayed using language that would assist students to have a growth mindset about their studies rather than a negative one. The following is an explanation of the new assessment indicators.

 

If a student reaches the goal they will be at the goal achieved level. Any progress beyond that will give them a goal surpassed or goal well surpassed result.

During the SSG meetings we will be looking at the goals and discussing them with you. If you have any questions the interviews will be the time that we can support you and respond to these. We thank you in advance for your patience as we begin to work with this different model.

If you have any concerns or questions regarding this new format please don’t hesitate to contact Kirrily Lamers on 94673972. I would be more than happy to discuss anything regarding these changes. We look forward to working with you to support your child to reach goals and ‘be the best they can be.’

 

Kirrily Lamers

Assistant Principal