Talking with your child about feedback  

Reflecting on learning

This year, we are no longer using MyNorthcoteHigh for the purpose of publishing academic feedback to families. Instead, we have asked teachers to give feedback directly to students, on their work.  On their work can mean a number of things: 

• Comments or notes on the work itself
• Notes and comments on rubrics used in class.
• Feedback provided in Teams/OneNote

 Some of the feedback might be formative, assisting students to improve before an assessment task, and some might be summative, written on a completed and submitted task.  Because we are learning remotely, it is likely that more of the feedback will be formative, as we have asked teachers to reduce the number of formal assessment tasks.  

Feedback for most subjects should be available from Friday 3  September.

At the same time you are discussing your child’s recent Learning Behaviours Report, we would like to encourage you to ask your child to show you the feedback on their work they have been receiving on their class work and assessment tasks. This discussion would help support the upcoming Parent, Teacher, Student Conferences on 9 and 17  September.  To assist our learners to be ready for the discussion, we have asked teachers to take the time  to remind students about the feedback they have received and where the feedback is, and to reflect on the feedback and how it can improve their learning.   

 Some questions that may help you start the discussion:  

• What have you been learning about in this subject this term?   
• What tasks have you been working on?  What have you learned from doing those tasks?   
• What comments has your teacher given you about how you are learning? Can we look at that together?   
• What’s going well in this subject? What did you do that helped things go well?   
• What’s challenging about this subject?  
• What could you do differently? 
• Do you need to ask your teacher for something to help you in this subject?  

Using these strategies can also keep the discussion positive:   

Focus on progress. Acknowledge effort and improvement, as well as achievement, with specific statements. For example: "Your Science teacher's feedback is that you have really improved the level of detail in your prac reports: I'm really pleased to see the extra effort you've put in there."   

Ask how they feel. Ask about areas of a subject they feel confident in and are enjoying, and why. Similarly, ask which aspects they are feeling less sure about. Talk about their expectations of themselves, and their interests, without judgement or comparison to yourself, their peers or their siblings.   

Employ a growth mindset. Ask questions that encourage your child to see setbacks and mistakes as learning opportunities, and to see challenges as desirable. Turn "I'm not sure I can do it, I'm just not very good at {subject/task}” to "I'm not sure I can do it yet, but I think I can learn to with time and effort".   

Work with your child to set concrete and achievable goals based on their learning feedback. For example, getting the next English assignment finished, asking a question if they're stuck in Maths.  Focussing on small successes will build confidence and resilience and encourage them to see the feedback as an opportunity to grow.