R-6 Reporting ReviewTerm 2 2012Parent Group

What do we aim to achieve?

Firstly Port Broughton Area School wants to provide a quality reporting system to parents that informs them clearly of how their students learning is progressing.

Secondly Port Broughton Area School wants to support its teachers by providing a quality report proforma that represents an acceptable work load.

Any changes made will be implemented for term 1 2013.

What will happen to the information collected today? In early term 3 primary staff will

undertake a similar review process of the R-6 reports.

The parent information will be used during this time so that primary staff can consider parent concerns/recommendations when making decisions about reporting at R-6.

SACSA & The Australian CurriculumFrom semester 2 2012 PBAS will be reporting against the Australian Curriculum in: Maths and science (R-7)

By the end of 2013 PBAS will be reporting against the Australian Curriculum in: Maths, science, English and history (R-8)

All other subject areas will be reported against the South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability Framework (SACSA).

What does the Education Department expect?

Schools must provide two written reports per year that report on all areas of learning.

A written report refers to a report which can be from 1 page up in length and could include (or not) blocks of writing, continuums, tick boxes etc…..

Schools must use plain language.

The mid year report should reflect learning to that point.

The end of year report should reflect learning across the whole year.

What does the education department expect? Reports must be based on the 5 levels A-E or

their word equivalents.

 A

Your child is demonstrating excellent achievement of what is expected at this year level

B Your child is demonstrating good achievement of what is expected at this year level

C Your child is demonstrating satisfactory achievement of what is expected at this year level

D Your child is demonstrating partial achievement of what is expected at this year level

E Your child is demonstrating minimal achievement of what is expected at this year level

Our current R-6 processTerm 1 Class teacher decides what will go home to parents.

Take home books/portfolios are generally sent home providing work samples and teacher comments. Some staff provide the opportunity for parent teacher interviews.

Term 2A written report goes home Friday of week 8 with parent teacher interviews scheduled for week 10. Term 3 Parent teacher interviews.Term 4A detailed written report goes home Wednesday week 9.

Major parent concerns with current system and report formats?

Major ConcernsI know what the class is doing I want to know what my child is doing. Common view held by those at meeting.

In mid year report I skip over generic comments and go to personalised information (math, English, overall comment). Common view held by those at meeting.

Student comments waste of time – common view held by those at meeting.

Put in explanations of A-E grades. Do teachers understand the current A-E system (as stated in slide 6?) . A parent had it told to them just recently (by a teacher from another school) that an A is one or two years levels above. This is not what DECD expectations are in regard to grading.

Inconsistencies between comments and grade – if a child receives a ‘Satisfactory’ for grade but the comment keeps using the word ‘Good’ there is a mismatch in terminology and this confuses parents. Are teachers using the word equivalents to just to give a result but then forgetting about the terminology within the comment itself?

Report Formats Examples

Spend time looking through examples provided. Spend time individually taking in the different formats. Talk to others about what you like, dislike, don’t understand

Using post it notes record: Positives (GREEN) Negatives (BLUE) Questions you may have (PINK)

Link comments to a specific report i.e. I really like….. on report 4

What did parents like from the different formats

What parents liked

Easy to read displays each subject clearly user friendly. Report 1

Easy to read. Report 1

I like the one line overview of what has been taught. Easy to read. Report 1

I like the use of the explanation of A-E grades. Report 2

Achievement per aspect of subject is good (breaks down subject into sections and allows me to see strengths and weaknesses within a subject). Report 3

Detailed content of each subject. Report 4

Like the idea of school values. Report 4

Well presented easy to read can easily identify specific area of learning. Report 4

Key improvement focus for each subject is good. Report 5

What did parents like from the different formats

What parents likedLike the reading nights in summary. Report 6

Like page 2 referring to personal development. Report 7

Good review of all subject areas. Report 7

I like how this is all relevant to each child – no general comments. Report 7

I like the way our reports(PBAS) are set out, just need to make the comments more personalised. Report 8

I like the layout. One column for what they are learning and one for student progress. Report 8

Really like this layout, is easy to read and relevant to the child. Report 9

Easy to read. Quick glance to see how child is doing. Report 9

Simple, easy to read. Individual topics for each subject. Areas of strength and areas to develop. Report 9

What parents didn’t like from the different formats

What parents disliked

Need detail of specific areas of learning referred to for individual student. Report 1

Need a few more personalised comments about the student. Report 1

Too much to read under each subject. Report 2

Too much information about the curriculum not the student. Report 2

Explanation of each subject not necessary. Report 2

Difficult to read, too much detail of class work, not individually informative. Report 2

Looks complicated hard to follow. Report 3

Too much information per subject. Only need overall comment on the whole subject. Report 3

Has too much writing would be better with more tick boxes. Report 3

Doesn’t tell you anything about how individual is going. Too general. Report 3

What parents didn’t like from the different formats

What parents disliked

Too many tick boxes – not enough individual comment on each subject. Report 4

No overall teacher comment. Too much writing in tick boxes makes it confusing just have a space to insert Excellent, Good etc. rather than have them all written on the report which takes up space making the report cluttered. Report 5

Not individualised, no teacher comment. Report 5

Hard to read, too busy. Report 5

No comment from teacher. Report 5

Needs more information. Report 6

Not enough detail for each subject. Student comment – delete. Report 6 (and other reports that have a student comment section.

Grading system confusing. Report 6

Not enough information about each subject. Report 6

Not enough info on individual child. No explanation of what the grade means. Report 6

What parents didn’t like from the different formats

What parents disliked

Time consuming for teacher. Report 7

Comments too general. Student comment is a negative. Report 8

Only comments on English and maths not other subjects. Report 9

What sort of information do you want in a report? A school report should clearly inform parents

of the progress their child is making at school.

ContentWhat are the key things you want to learn about your child from their school report?

What did parents want the report to tell them about their child? Child’s achievement Child’s effort including attitude &

application Child’s strengths Child’s weaknesses Performance in relation to school

values (they all liked Wallaroo’s Values page)

Where to now? Nick will collate/keep the data.

A time will be made to present this information to R-6 staff for discussion.

A further time will be made to continue the review process with primary staff.

The aim – to develop a better report format for parents for 2013.

Summary PBAS structure good just needs some slight modification

and improvement re generic comments. Comments need to be personalised. Student comment a waste of time and space (all thought

this). Reduce comment size ie key focus area – maybe two

sentences then have tick boxes to impart majority of information.

Minimum information on content maximum information on student.

Grade and comment consistently match. A-E explanation should be on reports so parents are very

aware of what ‘Excellent’ etc. represents.