Parents
The Learning Curve diary planners were designed and written by an experienced teacher and father of three sons to enable and empower parents to contribute more to their children’s education.
Unfortunately, adolescent children neither want parents nor allow them to be involved in their education; it is a natural consequence of puberty. In combination, the Learning Curve diary planners and supporting website provide regular opportunities for parents to be part of their children’s learning without their permission.
The following dimensions are built into the Learning Curve to achieve this aim:
- Instilling through drip feeding into students’ learning and personal cultures, skills, abilities and values that enable the:
- striving for personal best standards of achievement by linking, thinking and learning
- acquiring of desirable personal attributes for them to become contributing citizens with spirit and confidence
- developing of qualities for independent lifelong learning, thus enabling them to be resilient and adaptable in the 21st century.
- Building sustainable and transparent learning partnerships within school communities by regularly connecting students, parents and teachers through the diary planners and website.
To ensure that parents feel empowered to be contributing partners in their children's education, whether Primary or Secondary, a series of weekly articles has been provided to either read in the Newsletter Articles section on the website or in the school’s newsletter.
The articles explain how parents can assist in their children's learning and development by encouraging them to adopt the tips in the weekly and specific focuses in the diary planners. There is a Parents’ Guide on how the Learning Curve can be best used to assist their children. Also, focuses can be downloaded by Parents in the section below to use at home.
Also provided, are articles in the Newsletter Articles section titled Attendance: It’s not OK to be away that explain the adverse effect poor attendance has on children's learning; they are to the point and frank, particularly in relation to parent condoned absences.
The following documents are able to be downloaded by Parents to use at home to assist their children’s learning:
Parents’ Guide(.doc) (11 page guide)
2010 Secondary Newsletter Articles(.doc)
2010 Primary Newsletter Articles(.doc)
In particular, the focuses titled My Checklists in the downloads below, provide Parents with a framework that enables them to regularly monitor and contribute to their children’s learning progress.
Junior Secondary- Checklist page 5
Middle Secondary – Checklist page 5
Senior Secondary – Checklist page 5
To assist their children to think through projects and issues in an organised step by step manner, available for Parents are Thinking and Organisational Tools to download:
Pluses, Minuses, Interesting(PMI)(.pdf)
Know, What, How, Learnt(KWHL)(.pdf)
Think, Pair, Share(.pdf)
Glad, Mad, Sad(.pdf)
The Hand(.pdf)
Y Diagram(.pdf)
The Issues Matrix(.pdf)
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats(SWOT)(.pdf)
Urgency versus Importance(.pdf)
Musts and Options(.pdf)
Health and Safety at School(.pdf)