June 15
Later this week, mid-year student reports will be sent home. You may recall at the end of last year, the school surveyed the parent community to gather feedback about the reports that are written twice a year for parents. Approximately one hundred families helped us gather information about the language used in reports, what areas of the report are important, what needs to be included, the specialist reports and overall level of satisfaction. As a result, we are keen to make some changes based on the feedback received from parents as well as implement some ideas from the school leadership team. For this to happen, we need to move away from the current software program that we are using and find a platform that will allow more flexibility in the way we can structure and present our reports.
In 2015, we are investigating not only a new report software package but a school management system. A school management software system (for example you may have heard of Compass or Sentral) will allow our school to change the way in which it collects attendance information, communicates electronically with parents, manages fees and payments, records student achievement data (which is directly linked to writing student reports) and sharing student progress throughout the year not just at report writing time. We are in the midst of selecting a suitable suite and will then need time in semester two for staff to learn how to use it. This means that student reports will not look very different until 2016 as we will then have more control over shaping their look and content due to having a software platform that will allow us to do so.
Only yesterday as a matter of coincidence was I flicking through my primary school reports (the year is withheld) which were primarily tick a box or a sentence on each key area. In my grade 5 report under the heading ‘Oral Expression’ it read, “Excellent standard of speech maintained throughout the year. A little too keen to express himself sometimes though.” With that, I’d better end this entry.
Later this week, mid-year student reports will be sent home. You may recall at the end of last year, the school surveyed the parent community to gather feedback about the reports that are written twice a year for parents. Approximately one hundred families helped us gather information about the language used in reports, what areas of the report are important, what needs to be included, the specialist reports and overall level of satisfaction. As a result, we are keen to make some changes based on the feedback received from parents as well as implement some ideas from the school leadership team. For this to happen, we need to move away from the current software program that we are using and find a platform that will allow more flexibility in the way we can structure and present our reports.
In 2015, we are investigating not only a new report software package but a school management system. A school management software system (for example you may have heard of Compass or Sentral) will allow our school to change the way in which it collects attendance information, communicates electronically with parents, manages fees and payments, records student achievement data (which is directly linked to writing student reports) and sharing student progress throughout the year not just at report writing time. We are in the midst of selecting a suitable suite and will then need time in semester two for staff to learn how to use it. This means that student reports will not look very different until 2016 as we will then have more control over shaping their look and content due to having a software platform that will allow us to do so.
Only yesterday as a matter of coincidence was I flicking through my primary school reports (the year is withheld) which were primarily tick a box or a sentence on each key area. In my grade 5 report under the heading ‘Oral Expression’ it read, “Excellent standard of speech maintained throughout the year. A little too keen to express himself sometimes though.” With that, I’d better end this entry.