Each year students complete assessments and receive a comment on the work that they have completed. Parents are sent a report and this too has a comment. What is the purpose of these comments?

Is it to compliment the student on their talent or is it to highlight what they have completed in line with what they need to be learning? When John Hattie interviewed teachers about what is meant by feedback, the answers were interesting and centred around giving a comment about what was completed correctly and what was not, according to certain criteria. When John Hattie interviewed students, they answered that feedback helps them to know where to go next.

Over the years the staff at Emmanuel have completed professional learning around Visible Learning and Feedback and this is informing our teaching practice to be able to provide the best feedback to students and parents possible. Students and parents, alike want to know the following:

Where am I going?
How am I going?
Where to next?

This helps students understand what they have achieved. Are they progressing through the unit and learning what is required? The “how am I going?” enables students to know their level of mastery in the topic; whether they have achieved a level of mastery or whether there are areas that need additional work. The last question “where to next?” gives students a pathway to follow. This will tell them if they need to revise or rework an area of content to achieve a better understanding, or whether they have mastered that content and need to progress to deeper learning of that topic. This is where teachers are able to provide extension for growth in the specific area.

Over the last year we, as a high school, have been moving into the space of continuous reporting. This is where teachers are working towards providing feedback to students and parents in the format outlined above. It has been a work in progress and we endeavour to refine our process as we move deeper into this area. As we move into a new year, we will be focussing on the structure of the feedback more and refining our feedback.

Janice Pieterse — Head of Teaching and Learning Secondary