Our students have just completed a round of ‘Student-Parent Conferences’. This was viewed by our community as very much an opportunity for our students to demonstrate responsibility for their own learning – to talk about that of which they were proud, their progress, the goals they had set and how they had worked towards them, and areas for further improvement.
Yrs 4-6 at Oakleigh SS are within the ‘BYO’ area of the school which means we encourage the use of personal devices to support their learning. Their iPads are used to extend learning, to support learning, to allow them to express themselves in various ways and to provide a means to document their learning, encouraging reflection and growth.
Many students in Yrs 4-6 use their iPads to document their own ‘Learning Journey’ and then, in conferences with their parents, they are able to show examples of their work including evidence of progress.
After sitting with a group of Year 6 students this morning to hear about their journeys, I was super impressed at how they were able to articulate themselves and how the gathering of the samples and evidence of learning had been a support for this. Additionally, the depth of their pride and reflection was quite delightful and I found myself marveling at the maturity of these students and how their growing self-awareness of themselves as learners was a wonderful thing to be witnessing at this stage of Year 6.
I took quotes from them that included:
“We put together reflections on our learning in Yr 6”.
“We are tracking our progress and improvements and strengths and weaknesses”.
“Say if someone’s goal is to get more writing done – they can give us more time”.
“I actually realised how much I had improved”
“I realised how much I had learnt”.
“I didn’t realise how much I had learnt and this was while we were having fun”.
“Even though we thought we were just having fun – doing this portfolio made us realise how much we were actually learning”.
“I could reflect on how I could improve in Secondary School and what I should be focussing on more”.
“It made me realise how much I was improving in all areas and also that in some areas I could work harder”.
“It was really good to look back and see what we had done and see how much we had improved”.
“In the writing I had a sample from Week 1 in Year 6 and Week 6 in Term and I was able to see the improvement but also see the things I did well to improve and what other things I could do better”
“In maths I was put in XXXX class and I knew I struggled at first and I found things hard but then I realised that I needed to take more time and to relax more”.
“It was an eye-opener”.
“It helped me to realise what I was good at”.
“The teachers knew how much I was improving but sometimes it isn’t easy for us to realise.”
“Every book is a reflection of our own creativity, our work and our efforts”.
“It showed us that if we put in a lot of effort – we will improve”.
“We aren’t going to improve just because we are told to – it is a matter of putting in effort”.
“You need to step out of your comfort zone in order to do your best”.
Samples from their portfolios:
