Dear Parents and Carers of Good Samaritan,

It’s that time of the year again when you will receive your child’s Semester One report on Friday. It is really important that parents have an understanding of how the reports are written and how teachers make judgements to award grades to the students.

In NSW, schools are required to report to parents using a 5 point achievement A-E grading scale. This requirement comes from the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) who also direct the syllabus to which teachers plan, program, teach and assess. 

Let’s take a look at what the grading system means in reality.

The A-E grading scale is for use within a stage of learning; for example, in Stage 2 (Years 3&4), teachers can award grades to students based on their achievement of stage 2 outcomes. This is because the assessment information teachers have collected for each student is up to that point in time. The grade is based on the content students have been exposed to - judgements are not made against end-of-stage standards. NESA directs teachers to give the grade that best matches the standard achieved so far.

Grades are awarded against the standards, that is, the NSW K-6 syllabus outcomes, not compared with, or to, other students. This means that a class may have many students receive As and Bs or where all students receive Cs. The intent is not to grade classes on a bell curve where there is a certain percentage of each grade given.

Judgements about grades form one part of reporting to parents. Teachers make decisions about grades by making ‘on-balance judgements’ about students' work. This means that assessment data is gathered across numerous work and assessment samples not based on single tests.

An on-balance judgement does not focus on one single piece of work. Hence, the importance of students being Ready to Learn each and every day. Assessment data used for reporting needs to be built up over time and come from different situations.

NESA encourages teachers to use a wide range of assessment practices. By doing this it means that teachers are able to assess before, during and after learning sequences therefore allowing for valid judgements. This limits the need for ‘one-off’ tests that can be very shallow and often do not reflect what the students actually know and are able to do.

Now that you are thinking about reports, take a couple of minutes to watch the clip below from Michael Grose who is founder of Parenting Ideas and one of Australia’s leading parenting educators.

Michael says that the last report may be used as a benchmark. This is true not necessarily to compare the grades from previous reports (remember they are a point in time report) but rather the broad view of the report - specifically: socially, attitudes to learning and behaviour.

Be mindful that your child will operate differently to his/her siblings or friends. It is important to take a broad view of learning - not all learning is academic and your child’s commitment to their learning is extremely important to their success.

When giving feedback to your child try to ensure that they take on some of the responsibility of learning. You can’t learn for them and neither can their teacher/s. 

So:

• Be mindful of their confidence levels
• Be honest with them and positive about what they have achieved
• Be constructive - make plans with them about their improvement. Ask them where they feel they need to improve. They will surprise you!
• Be inclusive: make sure they are involved in the conversation. Children need to be challenged in their learning but with high support.

Lastly, use the Parent Teacher interview next week as an opportunity to hear more about your child and their learning. If you wish your child to be involved in the interview, bring them along and involve them in the discussion.

As we journey through the week, with Jesus,

Toni Sillis

Principal

GSFM Teddy Bear’s Picnic

The picnic will be held following the postponed Mother’s Day Liturgy as a celebration of the end of Term 2 on Friday 25 June.

The Liturgy will begin at 12noon.

Year 6 will be living the Benedictan value of HOSPITALITY with a selection of cakes and slices to share with you on the day.

YouTube is a social media platform. It is a user-generated video sharing platform that allows people to discover, watch and share videos. As a social media platform the recommended minimum age for using YouTube is 13+.

At Good Samaritan students are not encouraged to use YouTube to upload videos, to like or subscribe to videos. School managed iPads no longer have access to YouTube. At school students use iMovie, clips and Stop Motion. Teachers do use Youtube videos for discussion, making teaching points and for stimulus in lessons. The school’s process is that all videos, including YouTube clips are watched and go for no longer than necessary within the lesson.

At Good Samaritan students are not encouraged to use YouTube to upload videos, to like or subscribe to videos. School managed iPads no longer have access to YouTube. At school students use iMovie, clips and Stop Motion.

You can read more about YouTube in the eSafety Commissioner eSafety Guide.

Thank You:

to Mrs Mewett and Mrs Gray for organising the Netball Gala Day. Our thanks is also extended to all the parents and grandparents who were able to assist on the day or who made alternate arrangements so that their child could play. It is very much appreciated and a great day was had by all!