Mr. Kibblewhite and I have just finished reading over three
hundred second term reports cards.
Teachers spend hours writing these reports, choosing words carefully,
wanting to be kind but honest in how they describe students’ progress and areas
for further growth.
It is hard to put a child’s full learning profile into
words, especially on only one page. And
we also are beginning to wonder if a letter grade can accurately represent what
a child knows and can do. Many schools
across our province are piloting a new way of communicating student learning,
that is on-going and frequent, rather than a three-times a year event.
Some teachers are using Twitter, some a program like Fresh
Grade, to send parents and anecdotes about their child: projects, speeches, art work, activities,
daily writing, responses to reading, participation in games, and so on. I know that I would have loved to be a fly on
the wall in my children’s classrooms! As
a single, working parent, it was hard to be in the school on a regular basis,
and the answer to, “What did you do in school today?” was not always very
satisfying.
Let us know what you think?
Are you getting the information you would like from our report
cards? Do you find the comments (and the
letter grades in grades 4 to 7) give you sufficient information? Would you like to see examples of work that
is “meeting expectations” in order to see what the “widely held expectations”
are? We’d love to have a conversation.
