Reports are one way ACT public schools inform parents about their children’s learning and progress. Reports are provided to parents at the end of semesters one and two of each school year. Parents are encouraged to meet with their children’s teacher/s to discuss the report and strategies for supporting further learning.

Schools provide other opportunities for parents to engage in learning about their children’s progress through parent-teacher interviews, three-way interviews, learning journeys, exhibitions, performances and portfolios.

Preschool

Parents receive reports about how their children in preschool are progressing towards the five Learning Outcomes in the Early Years Learning Framework.

Kindergarten to Year 10

Australian Curriculum

Teachers of students in Kindergarten to Year 10 report on how a student is progressing against the achievement standards for each learning area or subject in the Australian Curriculum. The Australian Curriculum Achievement Standards describe the quality of learning expected by students in each subject for their year level. For example, one of the Achievement Standard sentences in Year 3 English is ‘They listen to others' views and respond appropriately using interaction skills’. This part of the Achievement Standard describes how well students are expected to ‘listen’ and ‘respond’ by the end of Year 3.

Teachers also write comments on the reports to provide more information about a student’s strengths and indicate areas for development and strategies for improvement.

Kindergarten

A descriptive scale is used to report on a Kindergarten student’s achievement against the Australian Curriculum Achievement Standards for each subject.

Years 1 to 10

The end-of-semester reports for students in Years 1 to 10 provide parents with an assessment of their children’s achievement against the achievement standards in the Australian Curriculum for each subject studied. Grades from A to E are used to report on student progress against the standards.

When a student in ACT schools is given a ‘C’ grade it means they have demonstrated the understanding and skills expected at the Achievement Standard for their year level. If a student receives a ‘C’ in both semester one and two reports, it indicates that the student has made progress, and learned new knowledge and skills based on the new and more challenging material studied.

Abilities Based Learning and Education Support (ABLES)

A number of ACT public schools are also using the Abilities Based Learning and Education Support (ABLES) to report progress and achievements of students in schools who are not yet accessing Kindergarten level learning.

Years 11 and 12

Reports for students in Years 11 and 12 provide parents an A to E grade and information about their children’s progress on the courses they have studied each semester. All courses for Years 11 and 12 are approved by the ACT Board of Senior Secondary Studies.

New system wide reports

A new report format for students in Kindergarten to Year 10 is under development. This new report will be used by all ACT public schools as part of a new system for reporting on student achievement. A further update on the new reports and how to understand them will be provided in 2019. ●

Fromn the ACT Education Directorate's Curriculum team.

Editor’s note:

Council has presented parent concerns to the Directorate about the difficulty garnering meaningful information from their child’s reports, particularly seeing clearly whether their child is struggling and what progress is being made.

We’d like to hear more about what you think - Contact us: 

Do you value the A-E comparison reports (example shown to right)?

Should it be included with your child's report or available at the school level?

Do you find written reports from your school useful? How could they be improved? What additional information do you need?

If High School reports included a section like the one below on personal / behavioural aspects, would that be useful?

What do you think of the following draft section?

Council is looking to work with the Directorate to make the new report format as useful to parents as possible.

This article appeared in ParentACTion Magazine, Term 4, 2018.