Following Up after Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences

Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences have been held at all campuses during this first term. The main purpose of these conferences is to clearly communicate a student’s progress in their learning at school, and in the case of a student who may be experiencing difficulties, to work together as a team to explore any concerns.

Students, and their parents, should come away with a good understanding of what progress looks like for that individual student as well as knowledge about their strengths in particular areas of learning and what could be done to improve their learning. Teachers usually make suggestions as to what they can do to assist each student grow and progress.

As families would know, the school also assesses learning behaviours in Year 7 to 12, a set of approaches to learning that are evidence-informed and provide a framework of support for improving learning in any subject area. These are: Openness to Learning, Communication, Critical and Creative Thinking, Collaboration and Self-Regulation.

If parents would like some more information on what they can do to help their child in their learning journeys at the school, I advise the following sites:

(1) A set of good learning behaviours from the PEEL group (Project for Enhancing Effective Learning) that emerged from Monash University: http://www.peelweb.org/index.cfm?resource=good%20behaviours

(2) Advice from Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education on how parents can help support a mindful culture relating to learning at home: http://www.pz.harvard.edu/resources/9-apps-for-parents

Ms Linda Shardlow
Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching