From the Head of Junior School

Welcome back to Jen Eastwick from maternity leave. Jen is our new entrant teacher for Terms 3 and 4. It is wonderful to have Jen return as part of our team.

Over the past two years, Wayne and I have made a concerted effort to travel around New Zealand during the term break. We usually have a general idea of what direction we would first like to go, and then we rely on instinct as we travel; no concrete plans, no preparing of events, ideas or activities. We would not have even attempted this whilst we had our children at home, as the mother in me could not have coped! However, travelling this way at the moment is quite liberating!

This term break, we ventured down south to immerse ourselves in Central Otago - pretending to be Southerners! We travelled to Danseys Pass, Naseby and Ranfurly, with a few stops in between. What a beautiful part of the world. What an adventure!

The Term break also allows time to read the latest publications of academic and educational research to ensure that our Junior School is on top of best practice and current research. The newest reading that has a significant interest is papers on a review of Student Reporting in Australia conducted by The Australian Council of Educational Research. This has been a productive read on so many levels and has given an insight into current trends, beliefs and best practices. Most interestingly were the prediction of the future of traditional twice-yearly school reports. “Advances in technology are enabling schools to provide more continuous, personalised information about students and their learning, including the possibility of parents/carers accessing online….” (Hollingworth, Heard & Weldon, 2019). The report highlighted parents’ differing wants and needs and the difficulty that this places on an educational institution to cater to all. However, one thing was apparent; parents want two forms - an indication of how their child is progressing to a benchmark for their particular year level and comments that stipulate information about their child’s learning, achievement and attitude in “real-time”. Online platforms like HERO allow this to happen, keeping parents regularly up to date to current goals, information on different curriculum areas throughout the year as well as reporting on achievement levels relating to benchmarks.

The Student-Led Conferences this term is another essential layer to reporting on your daughter’s progress. It allows discussing growth in learning attained over the year, exact next steps in learning for specific curriculum areas, and how to support learning in the home. Students are required to attend as sharing of goals, celebrating of learning achieved, and ensuring that the student understands that both parents and teachers are working together to best support their growth.