How do we share information about your child's growth and learning?
There are two main ways that we seek to keep parents informed of their child's learning and development. Firstly, our teachers send home regular communications outlining current learning activities and goals, what the children have been engaged in and highlights from their interactions with the children. We also publish our monthly Pre-K to Fifth Grade QACS Times! newsletter, to build a sense of school wide community and offer the children a chance to share their learning with a wider audience. This ongoing communication keeps all parents abreast of what is happening on a day-to-day basis, especially those parents who are unable to spend regular time in the classroom. It also provides teachers with a means of sharing their professional reflections and celebrating the many wonderful things they do with the children each day.
Secondly, there are three times scheduled throughout the year when parents and teachers meet to discuss each child's growth on an individualized level. Early in the school year (usually in October), each child meets with their parents and teacher to set goals and discuss their hopes/concerns for the year ahead. Teachers use the agreements made during these meetings to remind the children of their individual goals throughout the year, and to help them evaluate their progress and continually set new challenges to further their learning.
Teachers compose narrative reports on each child's learning twice a year, offering conferences with parents after these learning reports are sent home (in January and May). We highly value having time to meet one-on-one with parents to discuss each child's learning experiences in detail. Whilst conferences are not strictly required, we do strongly encourage parents to attend all three scheduled conference times. Parents are also welcome to arrange additional conference times with teachers if desired.
In keeping with our progressive philosophy, we do not use standardized testing - with pre-set goals or benchmarks for specific grade levels - to determine 'how much' our children have learned. While academic competency is certainly a goal at our school, our emphasis is on children developing depth of understanding and the ability to combine their learning in creative and critical ways. We do not promote the attainment of a rigid set of isolated facts or processes, in purposeful contrast to more 'traditional' educational environments. We therefore use authentic assessments, that are a natural part of an engaging and dynamic curriculum, to gain insights into each child's areas of strength and to set individualized goals for future growth.
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