New Feedback Method-  Learner Attributes

In 2024, Shalom College is excited to announce we are changing the way we give feedback on ‘learning attributes’ of our students to parents. In previous years, Shalom has issued an Interim Report card at the beginning of Term 2 as well as the normal End-of-Semester Report cards. Our new method of feedback will replace the Interim Report card. Additionally, the End-of-Semester Report cards will no longer show Application and Behaviour.

Instead, teachers will give feedback through Sia on the learning behaviours of students in each of their classes, as well as PC classes. This will be published to parents at the end of Week 5 in Term 1 & 3 for all Year 7-12 subjects and PC classes, and at the end of Week 5 in Term 2 & 4 for the Year 7/8 rotation subjects that occur in those terms.

Each student will be awarded either a Consistently (4), Mostly (3), Sometimes (2), Rarely (1) or Never (0) in the following criteria:

• Organisation - punctual to class, correct equipment in good working order, laptop charged, record book present
• Application - actively engaged in learning, appropriate use of technology (laptop, phone etc), homework complete
• Presentation - uniform worn appropriately, follows school guidelines for hair, make-up, jewellery etc
• College Values - treats others with dignity and respect, displays a positive attitude

This will appear on Sia Parent Dashboard under ‘Grades’.

and will appear as a mark out of 16.

More detailed information can be found by clicking on the ‘Learning Attributes’ link on the above screen.

After the initial feedback is published, teachers are able to update these criteria and re-publish them to parents at any time throughout the year and add a comment if necessary. Parents are advised of updates via Notifications in Sia. In this way, reporting on your child’s application in class is ‘live’, improving the quality of feedback for parents. We believe this is a significant improvement in our communication with parents, compared with the previous ‘point-in-time’ reporting.

Please note that end-of semester reports will still be issued as normal, however there will be no grade for Application and Behaviour on these reports.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions/concerns about our new method of providing feedback.

PLEASE UPDATE YOUR SHALOM COLLEGE PHONE APP

Recently, Shalom has had some important updates to the phone app. Most notably, there is now a new button called ‘Clipboard’.

Clipboard is the application our sporting coaches use currently to record results and attendance at school sporting events. This year, we are allowing access for parents and students. This will allow students and parents to see:

• the schedule for upcoming sporting events for you/your/child both through the phone app as well as in the Sia Calendar
• the teams you/your child has signed up for
• any changes to the draw/venue etc which will be communicated via notifications on the phone app

Some of these functions are currently available while others will be rolled out over coming weeks. In the future, Clipboard may also be used for music groups, community groups etc and we may unlock other features through Clipboard – watch this space!

To enable these features to occur, could all members of the Shalom community update their Shalom phone app as soon as possible? Those who have automatic updates should have this installed automatically. If your screen looks like the picture below, with the ‘Clipboard’ button showing, then your phone is updated.

If you do not have automatic updates, you will need to go to your App Store, search for the Shalom College phone app, and press update. The update only takes seconds to do.

Please complete this update as soon as possible to gain the benefits that Clipboard offers.

Mr Brendan Maher
Assistant Principal - Administration
maherb@shalomcollege.com