Letter to Our KS3 ICT Parents

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Dear Parents,

 It was great to speak to many of you both this week and last and in doing so discuss the progress your children have made in ICT during the first half of the school year. These were both very busy parent evenings and unfortunately we didn't get to speak to everyone. This letter will serve as a general update on the experiences your children have engaged in so far this school year, as well as an explanation of the feedback we are sending home, for those parents we haven't yet spoken to.

 In ICT lessons we teach your children vital skills and concepts which they will across their subjects throughout their school years, into the university and in their personal lives.
As you will know we do not assign an academic grade to ICT at the KS3. We do assign a Work Skills grade each CAL and assess student progress throughout the school year.  This school year we are piloting a tick list system for providing parents with much needed feedback about their children's progress. There is one tick list per grade, each of which contains references to the main areas covered so far this school year.

Ticks are good, they mean the child understands and is able to demonstrate their understanding in those areas. Crosses are good in their own way, as they flag up areas in need of improvement, or in the case of a project, areas omitted. Some areas are annotated with a number from 1-3. This is usually the case for quiz results or areas in which the children have excelled outside of any group activity. The range is 1-3, 3 being excellent, 2 very good and 1 in need of improvement.

We have also begun the implementation of a badge system. Students who excel in certain areas will receive a badge sheet with star stamps indicating their areas of achievement. It is important to note that a star indicates excellence, and lack of a star indicates areas the student is still improving in. Links to examples of the badge sheets and descriptions of each badge can be found at the top of our ICT teaching website. http://abcict.wikispaces.com. Links to all of our online lessons and tutorials can be found on this same site in the online lessons section. This site also contains the galleries of student work. We hope you find this information useful.

The tick lists (annotated examples can be found throughout this post.),will be sent home glued to the front pages in your child's planner, next week. Please Please do take a look at these and discuss them with your child. Please remember that this is a pilot system. We think it is important that you have better information on your child's progress ICT, and are going to continue working to hone this into the most efficient system we can. If you have any questions of a general nature you can post them here. If they are of a more personal nature, please contact your children's ICT teachers.

 Mrs Garcia                              
jennifergarcia@abc-net.edu.sv

Mr. Alfaro
rodrigoalfaro@abc-net.edu.sv