Communicating Student Learning
For the past four and a half years, SD48 teachers have engaged in a K-9 CSL pilot project where they explored new ways to communicate with parents and guardians using Proficiency Scales, face to face conferences, multiple ways to provide timely evidence of student learning throughout the school year, and written points of progress to describe student learning. After three years of these teachers collecting feedback from parents and providing their own input, the assessment committee is ready to support a new K-12 Communicating Student Learning Policy.
As well, the Ministry of Education announced that they are considering a new K-12 reporting policy for the 2022-2023 school year. Given that our team of teachers have been informing Ministry progress in this work, we anticipate that our new policy will be closely aligned with any new developments they make with respect to a new reporting order. For this year (2022-2023), Teachers will have two options, Option 1 and Option 2. These options are described below.
Option One (Pilot) - Quick Glance
In general, teachers using Option 1 use a variety of communication strategies to support timely student assessment and communication over the entire school year. This provides parents with information about student learning throughout the school year rather than during traditional reporting times in December and March. The timeline for distribution of the points of progress are flexible. Ongoing use of tools like the student MAP, journals, presentations of learning, video journals, student self assessments, examples of student work, etc. provide timely and descriptive evidence of student learning more frequently over the course of the school year. This means that the development of the points of progress in this option need not be as onerous to the teacher as traditional report card development tends to be (Option 2). In summary:
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Timely evidence in each subject area will be shared with parents in a variety of ways and will include:
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the big ideas and/or learning intentions for a specific learning task;
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a proficiency scale (1 - Emerging, 2 - Developing, 3 - Proficient, 4 - Extending); and,
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descriptive feedback which includes information about areas of strength, what needs further attention, the support from which the student benefits, and where the learner is going next with their learning in relation to the curriculum.
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Option Two (Available for 2022-2023) - Quick Glance
In general, teachers using Option 2 also use a variety of communication strategies to support student assessment and communication. However, the formal report card is much more detailed to provide parents and guardians with the information required to describe student progress. The report cards are distributed on set dates in December and March. Use of tools like the student MAP, journals, presentations of learning, video journals, student self assessments, examples of student work, etc. are still intended to inform the collection of student learning data for each report card. In summary:
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Three report cards and two informal face to face conferences:
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use the Provincial Proficiency Scale (1 Emerging, 2 Developing, 3 Proficient, 4 Extending);
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provide descriptive feedback which includes information about areas of strength, what needs further attention, the support from which the student benefits, and where the learner is going next with their learning in relation to the curriculum; and,
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provide detailed information on student progress at specific times.
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