St. Patrick's Blog Week of February 10th, 2014

St. Patrick's Blog

Week of February 10th, 2014

This past week saw two St. Patrick’s student teams compete in the Ottawa Catholic Board’s Math Olympics activity.  Our two teams tied for 13th place in the hotly contested activity, beating out 14 other schools for Math domination!  Students worked on Math riddles, mind-benders, time-shifters and hands-on activities. Congratulations to our student teams, and our Math department, which is fairing very well across the board.

We are putting the finishing touches on our new aerobic/weight room at the school this month.  The space will provide students with another setting to work on physical education at the school.  Some before/after pictures of the room:

BEFORE

                      AFTER!

Our Me to We fundraiser that is supporting the building of schools across a number of countries within Africa came to a close this week.  Students have been contributing change to the initiative for the past few weeks.  Our last activity was a cake auction that brought in additional funds to the charity.  Some examples of our cakes below!

Our Term One report cards are distributed on Thursday this week.  Parents/Guardians have an opportunity to see an evaluation of student learning from the beginning of the year to this point.  Parent/Teacher interviews are on Thursday, February 20th from 2:00 to 4:00 and 5:00 to 7:30 pm.  I have provided some additional information on report card format below from the Ministry of Education document: Reporting Student Learning which is a companion to the assessment and evaluation document: Growing Success.

Ongoing and Effective Communication

In classrooms across the province, teachers and students engage in a variety of assessment practices to help improve student learning. These practices include “assessment for learning” and “assessment as learning”, which involve, for example, sharing clear learning goals and success criteria, providing descriptive feedback, and providing opportunities for students to develop their skills of peer- and self-assessment.

The Elementary Progress Report Card supports assessment for learning and assessment as learning. It also provides an opportunity to:

1.    establish a positive relationship between teachers, parents, and students;

2.    involve parents as partners in a conversation about learning and assessment, and what they can do to support their child’s learning;

3.    identify concerns about student progress early in the school year and develop strategies to improve student learning.

In their comments on the Elementary Progress Report Card, teachers provide descriptive feedback that indicates to parents whether their children are “on track” and progressing appropriately. In the case of students who are experiencing difficulties, the descriptive feedback acts as a “red flag”, indicating the need for additional supports or interventions.

Teachers also engage in “assessment of learning” (or evaluation) – that is, gathering evidence and making judgements about how well students have achieved the curriculum expectations and developed the learning skills and work habits. They communicate those judgements to students and parents primarily through the Elementary and Secondary Provincial Report Cards. In addition to the letter grades or percentage marks teachers assign and record on the Provincial Report Cards to represent a summary of their judgements about the student’s achievement, they give descriptive feedback in comments, indicating what students have learned and need to learn as well as providing guidance to help students improve their learning.

Comments Relating to the Development of Learning Skills and Work Habits

Growing Success emphasizes the importance of six learning skills and work habits – responsibility, organization, independent work, collaboration, initiative, and self-regulation. Teachers report students’ development of these skills as “excellent”, “good”, “satisfactory”, or “needs improvement”. The comment relating to the development of learning skills and work habits should work together with this evaluation to convey a clear and consistent message about the students’ development of the skills and habits. In preparation for writing report card comments that focus on the student’s strengths and next steps for improvement with respect to the skills and habits, teachers may wish to consider how they will support the development of the learning skills and work habits and how evidence of this development will be collected for each student.

We encourage you to have a discussion with your son/daughter regarding their report card, and hope to see you at our interview evening on February 20th.

Have a great week;

Sean Kelly