Updated: Mar 2000 | Reporting Introduction

Reporting - Introduction

Effective reporting requires the use of a broad range of formal and informal, oral and written communication strategies to provide parents with accurate and relevant information about their children's achievement and progress.

It involves two-way communication - school to home and home to school - and involves partnerships between parents, students and teachers. Importantly, when students are kept informed about and engaged in their assessment and learning profiles, parents can be informed about their child's progress through the work students do at home, the work that they take home, or the conversations that result from discussing their children's work.

The reporting process can foster the home and school partnership in many ways. It allows parents to be:

	informed about the intended learning outcomes and receive regular evidence of student progress towards those outcomes. Annotated samples of student work with teachers' comments and students' observations are an effective means of doing this.
	consulted on effective reporting strategies as part of a broader consultative and educative process about the teaching and learning program at the school. This can be done through opinion surveys, case studies or by inviting parents to the school for informal and formal meetings.
	encouraged to contribute their knowledge about their children - their aspirations, concerns, strengths and achievements. This can be done in writing or orally at interviews and discussions.
	included in class or school activities and become part of the formative assessment process of their children. This includes receiving in-servicing on curriculum and teaching and learning, assisting in the classroom and with extra-curricular activities, and attending school decision-making forums and discussions.

Reporting to parents must be connected consistently to curriculum provision and assessment at the classroom and school levels.

A review of current policies and practices in reporting to parents, will, in many instances, reveal a need for change to be consistent with an outcomes-focused approach.

In planning and reviewing reporting teachers, working individually and in groups, need to:

	review reporting methods.
	review the school reporting policy.

An outcome sought by the Policy and Guidelines for Students at Educational Risk is that reporting practices provide parents with meaningful information to assist planning to improve outcomes for these students. It is expected that schools will use a variety of reporting methods, which accurately describe student progress.