Reporting Student Learning

Activity Stage 1 Money Matters

Web Reference: http://arc.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/go/stage1/maths/activities/money-matters/

Description Of Activity
Part A
Students are given a collection of 5, 10, 20 and 50-cent coins (or
cardboard shapes representing these). They demonstrate and
record different ways of making 20 cents, 50 cents and $1 using the
coins.
Part B
Students determine the change that they would receive from $1 if
they made each of the following purchases:
i.
1 ruler @ 30 cents each
ii.
2 erasers @ 40 cents each
iii.
1 notebook @ 75 cents each
iv.
3 pencils @ 20 cents each

Work Sample Ainsley (Year 1) Grade C

EEE314 Karen Cain

Isabel Horton 11477162A

Assessment Item 2

Part 1 Student Report

Achievements
Ainsley has worked hard to meet many of the outcomes aimed for in
this assessment task. Ainsley has demonstrated her knowledge of
counting and adding money; she is able to correctly show the totals
of most of the required denominations, indicating her near
achievement of outcomes NS1.1 (Counts, orders, reads and
represents two- and three-digit numbers) and NS1.2 (Uses a range
of mental strategies and informal recording methods for addition
and subtraction involving one- and two-digit numbers). Ainsley has
also demonstrated excellent use of diagrams in her working, and
has accurately depicted each item, making her work very visually
appealing. Ainsley is working well towards meeting the
requirements in addition and subtraction of these equations, and
demonstrates this in her workings.

Areas For Improvement / Future Learning

Ainsley needs to continue to improve her consistency in
mathematics. Focusing on tasks, and not allowing herself to become
distracted or disengaged can help achieve this. Self-monitoring and
teacher intervention will assist Ainsley in this area. Despite Ainsleys
ability to correctly calculate and show working for some equations,
she still needs to improve this skill in order to fully achieve the
above outcomes. Ainsley needs to continue to work on her ability to
record different ways of making-up amounts of money. Ainsley may
need to practice working with concrete materials, or may need to
take better care when transferring her concrete work into written
work.

What The School Will Do To Support The Student

The school will provide Ainsley with consolidative teaching in further
lessons, as well as one-on-one assistance if required. Some
important lessons that Ainsley will benefit from includes reexamining students use of concrete materials (in this instance
coins) in calculating equations. Ainsley will greatly benefit from this,
as it would be clear to whomever was teaching the lesson whether
Ainsley is making her mistake during the concrete or transitional
(concrete-written) stage of her work. Modelled work by a teacher,
and a second lesson in how exactly to visually structure coins and
count them should allow Ainsley to generate clearer answers.
Ainsley and her teacher will also revisit the value of $1 (one dollar,
i.e. 100 cents) in order to better enable her to subtract other values
from it, thereby calculating change. Ainsleys ability to calculate
two of the four sets of change, most likely means that Ainsley would
only need to be reminded to check her answers after she has
completed the equation, (i.e. 75 cents, plus 5 cents, equals 80, plus
20 cents equals 100. Therefore $1 minus 75 cents equals 25 cents.)
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Isabel Horton 11477162A

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What Parents Can Do At Home To Support The Student

Practicing different equations at home (these can be sent home in
Ainsleys homework folder) would assist her to become more
confident in answering the more difficult questions. Ainsley would
also benefit from practicing her use of concrete materials at home,
the more she uses and is able to accurately record her findings, the
more capable she will be to answer challenging equations.

EEE314 Karen Cain

Isabel Horton 11477162A

Assessment Item 2

Part 2 Reporting To Parents

Considerations For Parent-Teacher Interviews
A parent-teacher interview is a meeting time for parents to discuss
any concerns and queries they may have with their childs teacher,
as well as being informed about the learning that their child has
undergone during the school term. Parent-teacher interviews
provide the opportunity for both parties to discuss many areas of
students learning that need to be addressed.
Parents have a true understanding of their childrens
accomplishments, preferences, fears, health and personalities, while
schools hold much knowledge about students learning, i.e. their
academic and social strengths and weaknesses, learning style,
ability to relate and self-esteem. (Brady & Kennedy, 2005) Meaning
that building a meaningful and respectful relationship with parents
is ly important to student learning.
During a parent-teacher interview, teachers must take into
consideration a variety of factors in order to best convey information
to parents. One factor to consider that is extremely important during
parent teacher interviews is the use of plain language, meaning
not using jargon or teacher talk. Speaking to parents using plain
language enables them to understand and communicate best with
their childs teacher, thereby supporting their childs learning.
(Blackburn, 2013) When a teacher speaks to parents using language
that is not common understood and used, the parents may walk
away from the interview feeling they have not gained anything,
taking this on board, teachers should also be sure to clarify any
information they are not clear of, and ensure that parents feel
comfortable to ask if there is something they wish to hear about
more in-depth. For example, in a parent teacher interview involving
Ainsley and her parents, the teacher would be sure to explain the
task clearly to her parents, to ensure that they understood what was
expected of Ainsley before describing her achievements and areas
for improvement.
Teachers must also consider the value of the feedback they are
giving to parents. It is necessary to outline to parents both students
achievements and the areas they need to develop further, or to give
warm and cool feedback (Blackburn, 2013) but this must be done
in a way that means any negative feedback is constructive and
meaningful, and looks towards the future and to how the student
can improve. By informing parents of their childs achievements and
the areas that need to be developed, ideally parents would not feel
worried, but would be able to assist with home practice and support.
For example, in informing Ainsleys parents that Ainsley needs to
continue to improve her use of concrete materials, her teacher could
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Isabel Horton 11477162A

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inform and show Ainsleys parents the work sample, and the
answers that Ainsley answered correctly and incorrectly, and
describe how this demonstrates the need for further practice. The
teacher could then give an example of some ways in which Ainsley
and her parents could engage with this skill at home. This feedback
is therefore both including warm and cool aspects, as well as being
constructive in asking for support to improve Ainsleys learning in a
specific way.

Considerations For Student Led Conference

A student-led conference, or a three-way conference provides a
forum for teachers, students and parents to acknowledge student
progress and achievement. (NSW Department of Education and
Training, 2007) Student-led conferences involve the teacher, student
and students parents meeting to discuss the students
achievements and areas for further improvement, unlike parentteacher interviews the student leads the conferences and is able to
show their parents samples they are proud of. Often a student-led
conference might make up half the time taken by parents and
teachers, and the other half may be more akin to a traditional
interview.
Stiggins (2001) supports the idea that a student-led conference
should precede parent-teacher interviews. This is such that students
will be aware of what is being discussed, and have an input in their
reporting process. Stiggins also suggests teachers request a followup reflection from parents regarding the progress of their childs
learning.
An aspect of student-led conferences that teachers must consider is
the time taken to prepare with all students for the meeting. All
students must have meaningful work samples to present to their
parents, in order to ensure the conference has purpose. Teachers
must work with students to complete work samples, and have them
ready for the conference, as well as discussing and preparing with
students what they will say while leading the meeting. Teachers
need to be able to support students in presenting their work to their
parents, and to help them develop the confidence to lead the
conference. Teachers do not need to consider as many aspects of
communication during a student-led conference as they would a
parent-teacher interview, as most of the discussion should occur
between the student and their parents.
An important aspect of presenting work samples to parents, in order
to demonstrate student learning is for students to be able to outline
their mistakes, and how they will be able to correct them. For
example in Ainsleys work sample she would be able to show her
parents which answers she completed correctly and which she did
not, and show some understanding as to how she could improve on
her mistakes and take her learning forward. Ainsleys teacher would
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Isabel Horton 11477162A

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need to work with Ainsley to understand why the mistakes occurred,

and then develop a plan to develop her knowledge. With the content
prepared, Ainsley and her teacher should suggest to her parents
strategies, which Ainsley could implement at home and school to
meet the outcomes she needs to.
The importance of considering all factors during both parent-teacher
interviews and student-led conferences is vital in ensuring that they
both provide meaningful and constructive discussion for parents,
teachers and students and that they also assist in developing a
positive home-school relationship to support students learning and
social development.

EEE314 Karen Cain

Isabel Horton 11477162A

Assessment Item 2

References
Blackburn, K. (2013). Interviews With Parents - EEE314.
Brady, L., & Kennedy, K. (2005). Celebrating Student
Achievment: Assessment & Reporting. Frenchs Forest: Pearson
Education Australia.
NSW Department of Education and Training. (2007). Three
Way Assessment Strategies and Conferences. From Curriculum
Support:
http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/index.htm
Stiggins, R. G. (2001). Student Involved Classroom
Assessment. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

EEE314 Karen Cain

Isabel Horton 11477162A

Assessment Item 2