A new way to connect parents and whānau with their students learning and progress.

This Friday will see the first Engagement Reports being emailed to you. These reports are meant to be a quick, easily understood report for you to gauge how your child(ren) is/are going in class. We aim to have these reports issued three times per term. We have used the term “engagement" as it covers many aspects of what happens in a classroom. Teachers will use a range of information to make this judgement. In thinking about the level of engagement, teachers will take into consideration how well the students are interacting in class, how focused they are, how much effort is being made, how respectful they are towards others, the manners they use and how much progress they are making.

Using a five point scale, a three would indicate all is going well, as expected, pretty happy with most aspects of what is happening in class. A four would indicate that in the last three weeks some really good stuff is going on and things are going very well. A five is something pretty exceptional and means that the last three weeks have been pretty amazing. Conversely, a two would indicate that there is some level of concern and that there needs to be a better focus, more attention and effort in class. A one means that there are serious concerns and urgent change needs to occur. I have asked staff that if a student is going to receive a “one” then contact with caregivers should be made before receiving the report. In these cases, our Deans will look across all of the subjects a student has to see if there are any trends or patterns of behaviour that are occurring and what support can be put in place.

Included in this report will be an overall attendance figure as well as attendance rates for individual subjects. As mentioned last year, students have to be at school if they want to do well. Each day missed, especially consecutive days, hampers the continuity of learning and reinforcement of key concepts.

We have developed this report to help strengthen our learning culture within the school and to clearly set out our expectations for our students and their contribution and accountability in the learning process.