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See also...
Transferring key knowledge
The Planner provides a key starting point for transferring the knowledge that could be the difference between a poor start and a great start to the year for some students (and staff).
Whether or not your school's Planner has been rolled over it contains valuable information for staff as they begin working with their 2009 students. But how will schools do this?
In many schools, senior staff / year coordinators... will have brief (15 minutes?) conferences with individual staff or teams of staff members using the Planner. The time invested in such an activity is likely to be returned many times over during the next several weeks.
It is all about constructing knowledge, arrangements and actions that work
In order to work well with their students, staff need to 'construct' and check their knowledge of the students as quickly and comprehensively as possible. Using the Planner astutely can make a significant contribution in this endeavour. It is a good idea to use the Planner data to inform the everyday inschool conversations from which working knowledge, arrangements and actions emerge.
1. If your Planner has been rolled over
It is simply a matter of clicking the Review a Class button on the Main Menu page (class names are the same as those used for SACS). This enables users to scroll through every student in the class.
On the Reports page you will find useful reports such as
- Class Histories,
- Class Support to Do,
- Class Student Goals
- ....
- and from the Student Ratings page you can get Class Lists of the students needs/performance ratings
Note Many of these reports include the students' previous class in order to make it easier for staff to identify who else may know about each student.
2. If your Planner has NOT been rolled over
Similar conferences are still possible by working from a SACS class list and finding individual student in the Planner one at a time. In both situations, it is possible to extract individual reports if required. Of course, the available data depends on what has been entered.
3. In the first few weeks of the year
Many schools encourage staff to check their initial impressions of particular students against the data in the Planner during the next few weeks.
And by early March, some schools will provide staff meeting time for this year's teachers to confer with teachers who have worked with the students previously.
- Reconciling and updating the Student Ratings data (where appropriate) is a useful element in these conferences.
4. Maintain sound governance through professional learning
The senior staff / management team should review purposes, arrangements and practices associated with the use of the Planner in the School. There are several things to be considered
- Governance (sound management)
- Planner basics and introductory presentation for use with staff
- Updating those staff members who need to be on the Discussion List
- Re-introduce staff to the Planner using the PowerPoint available from this page
- Including a possible staff workshop on developing ISPs (individual support plans for everyday support)
5. Reviewing the Planner in your school
Here is a link to a checklist that will help your review the range of ways that you use the Planner in your school.
From the insights that you gain, you will be able to plan improvements, and establish priorities to way in which the Planner is used to help ensure the success and well-being of all concerned. (All feedback is welcome).
Have a great year.
