I have been a principal for 22 years now - of five different schools. An issue that has vexed me for all those 22 years, plus another 15 years as a teacher and deputy principal, is that of tracking children's learning, recording assessment and reporting to parents.
As a deputy principal - for seven years - I worked on a tracking card that had every Achievement Objective in the curriculum listed down. I had a triangle system for showing the three different stages of mastery for each AO. It was a mammoth task devising, typing and producing this form for all 525 children at my school. I then had to set about filling it in for my 37 students and realised several things -
It was an exceptionally onerous task.
It was subjective.
It was out of date the moment I completed it.
Following on from point three, children slid (summer slide) back, and forward regularly (and often erratically).
Over the ensuing years I saw numerous versions of my document, often more comprehensive, often professionally produced (at considerable cost), and always all but devoid of information. The task was simply overwhelming for the teacher concerned.
I became principal of Pomaria school following my stint as a deputy principal, and an early mentor showed me his student tracking document. It consisted of numerous sheets of A3 cartridge paper stuck together.
Student names ran down the side and across the top (of the many taped sheets) were screeds of headings. A symbol system was used to show where each student was at at the end of each six week period of time. It was mind boggling.
Another colleague used tracking books. She set out each tracking book with achievement criteria. If a child achieved the criterion, a cross was placed in the square. For junior music (years one and two) there were 29 criteria. Multiply that by 28 children and you have 812 assessments to do just for music, and that was to be done twice a year.
A young Maori teacher showed me his assessment. It looked impressive. X's all over the page, my goodness he had been busy assessing and recording. I commended him on the effort involved. "No," he said, "look again." I did but was none the wiser. "I've made a tukutuku pattern," he told me.
Here was his point. Who was going to check up on those 29 music assessment criteria for each or any of his children. Even if they did, the "slide" would explain why they now didn't or now did deserve the cross. Also, who was this for? How did it inform teaching and learning? And so on...
These experiences really made me think about the whole process. There had to be better, more effective, efficient, meaningful and manageable way to achieve our goals.
At Pomaria I purchased an Apple laptop for every teacher, before the government introduced the Teacher Laptop scheme. We replaced hand-written reports with a digital version. For many this was a 'god-send' as several teachers had had to rewrite by hand their whole class reports up to three times.
We introduced drop-down menus, links to digital data to fill in comments and achievements, and tried to make the process more effective and efficient. We also undertook a lot of professional learning focused on providing individualised, meaningful, informative, plain-language reporting. We reported on what children could do and on their Next Step learning goals - long before the National Standards model came into being. We did this twice a year, had two Learner-Led Learning Conferences a year and had children set goals, devise action plans and identify success criteria, as well as reflecting on their learning progress. The Key Competencies also featured prominently.
All well and good - but not good enough.
From Pomaria, I moved to Te Akau Ki Papamoa School. There we took the process a stage further, with Learner-Led Learning Conferences each term. We inserted quick-time videos into the digital version of their reports that went home to parents. A key-frame from the video acted as a picture when the report was printed, but when shared digitally at the learning conference, the video of the child's learning in action was seen by parents, child and teacher.
All well and good, but still not good enough.
At Kaiapoi Borough School we took the process a stage further again. Our school and community had put a tremendous amount of time, thought and consultation into developing a set of values - BELONG = Believe in yourself; Empathy; Laughter; Openness; Nurture; Go-for-It.
Children reflected on their achievements and contributions in each of these areas and recorded them with photos/videos imbedded in their report documents.
All well and good, but still not good enough.
At Western Heights school we developed our own school values - Love to Learn to Lead - and embedded these into all that we say and do. We provided teachers with laptops for their first time, and brought in a new digital report format that was based on the models I had evolved over the preceding years.
These report forms were comprehensive, informative and individually relevant. They were also onerous for staff to produce and out of date before they even got home. Goals set for six months are meaningless within a few weeks in most cases. Laminating children's goals to go on their desks and fridges at home is all well and good, but not good enough. We needed to think outside the six month goal-setting, reflecting and reporting framework.
And so it was that a plan came into being... outlined in my next blog post.