Not your grandma's report card and conferences (or mine for that matter)

If you are a teacher or have children you know that report cards have changed A LOT since we went to school. My report cards looked like this: B,B, A, C, B. Robyn talks too much. My sister has a copy of my mom's 4th grade report card and it's very similar- check marks in the grade boxes and something like "Pam has nice handwriting."

Nowadays, and especially at our school, report cards are a NIGHTMARE! They literally take an hour or more per student to do. All the teachers are cranky and sleep deprived when they are due. Then we have to peer edit them, make changes, send to leadership to edit, and then make final changes. It's a process. Here's a sample (not a real student but a Frankenstein bogus report card that looks just like the real thing): FYI, our grading scale is E: exemplifies C: competent D: developing B: beginning

Sally Super Student
Literacy Read: C Writ: C Com: C	Sally has been working on using the writing process to complete her writing assignments this term. She consistently uses an appropriate writing structure to develop a personal narrative, and is working on developing her sentences from simple sentences to compound sentences. Looking through her journal, Sally demonstrates a good understanding of the concepts we have been learning, however does not consistently apply these concepts to her writing. I encourage her to work on reviewing her sentences during the revising process specifically to add detail and changes in order to apply some of the skills she has learned. Sally is using her comprehension skills to ask questions and make connections about the world around her to complete her research reports. Sally is able to read information independently to find answers from a text, and present the information she has found from her reading. Sally frequently participates in constructive communication. Good effort Sally!
Math DH:  C N: C	Sally shows a competent understanding of the concepts covered thus far. She frequently shows understanding of place value up to 100 as evidenced by her math journal work and through conversations where I have asked her to explain her thinking. Sally is capable of telling time to the hour and half hour and can match the analog time with the digital time. She enjoys completing hands on activities to show her understanding. Sally has shown good, steady progress this term and I hope that the excited mathematician inside her continues her hard work.
Unit of Inquiry 1  C	During the unit, Who We Are, Sally learned how citizens build communities. She has a firm understanding of how citizens build communities. She is able to explain the characteristics of a strong community and the impact of choices on a community.  She shows appropriate responsibilities as a citizen of our community. Sally completed an excellent family community iMovie project which highlighted her responsibilities in her family community. I encourage Sally to model her understanding of how choices affect a community by consistently setting a good example for her peers.
Unit of Inquiry 2  C	In our current unit, Where We Are in Place and Time, Sally is learning that change over time impacts relationships. She is able to explain how our world is interconnected and completed an interesting research project on trade and how it connects our world. She is able to explain that Kuwait needs products from other countries in exchange for resources that Kuwait has. Sally is able to explain how different things around us change, and demonstrated this knowledge through her personal timeline project, which highlighted the ways in which she has changed since she was born. I encourage Sally to work on applying her literacy skills to her unit of inquiry to help her communicate her ideas clearly and concisely.
Learner Profile	Sally is exhibiting the traits of a PYP learner. She is caring, empathetic, compassionate, and shows respect towards the needs and feelings of people around her.  She is open-minded, understanding and appreciative of everyone’s culture and perspective. She shows cooperation and being respectful while working together. She has a very positive attitude and usually excited about the projects we are working on and is eager to participate. Sally is often knowledgeable and understands things in the world. She reliably listens to the instructions and understands the directions for projects.  She asks basic questions and is able to use research skills to find answers to her own questions.  She demonstrates self-management skills and completes work in an organized and timely manner. I am so glad to have Sally in our class!

There are additional comments from the music, P.E., Arabic, and religion teachers. x 22 students. Also, this document is just what we use to write and edit it. It goes into a different formate for the parents.

After we FINALLY finish reports they are sent to the parents and we have three way conferences for two nights (5:30-8:30) but then we get Thursday off (yea!) which also happens to be Thanksgiving so that's nice. Three way conferences are also not like the conferences we had growing up, and I'm pretty sure they're not like what most conferences look like in most schools today either. Three way conferences involve the student, the parents, and the teacher.

Last year we had three way conferences but they weren't really explained to us, or at least not to me. It ended up being that the students came, sometimes, and they would just sit there while the parents and I talked about everything I already said in the report card. With the exception of the last conference of the year. That one is totally student led and I didn't have to do anything.

This year we had a professional development on what an IB three way conference SHOULD look like. This was met the way I meet a lot of new things. A few minutes of "You want us to do what?! That's not what I did last year!" Followed by a slow acceptance and ok, how do we do this? Ending with, "I'm so glad we did it that way- that was AWESOME!"

With an IB school the students are supposed to be more involved in their learning process. Three way conferences are meant to be more collaborative between the students, parents, and teachers. We spent the days leading up to the conferences reflecting on our work and class behavior. Kira, our amazing team lead, found these awesome reflection papers that I used. They did an awesome job reflecting. Here is what one of the final pages looked like:

At conferences I had the students read what they wrote to their parents and then we made a three way goal sheet. My students know all about goals because we talk about them in class. The three way goal sheet has goals for the student from the student, parents, and teacher.

I started with the student and let them say what goals they thought they should work on. Then I let the parents talk about the goals they thought their child should work on. Then I added mine. BTW- I put play as one of the goals for ALL my students. The goal sheet looks like this:

I LOVED having conferences this way. The students are more invested in their learning. They had great insight and were very thoughtful and honest about what they need to work on. They didn't just sit there and listen to adults talk about them, the adults talked TO them the whole time.

One last interesting thing from conferences. One of my students had been out of school for a couple of days because his sister has H1N1 (we have a few cases going around school-- but that's another story that I'm not getting into) He was basically quarantined so he and his mom couldn't really come to conferences. His mom emailed me and asked if I could call her and we could do it over the phone so we did. She put me on speaker and we did it exactly the same way. The student was very much involved even when it was a conference call. I thought that was pretty awesome too. :)

Now.... to get ready for some turkey and stuffing!!