“That ICPA Qld lobbies the Department of Education (DoE) and the Queensland Teachers Union (QTU) to highlight the educational disadvantage imposed on geographically isolated children when applying for boarding school, who attend a school that has made the school-based decision to exclude overall comments from semester reports.”
Since 2022, members with children attending Schools of Distance Education (SDE) have raised that there has been a notable change to content of semester reports, namely the significant reduction in comments provided. Interestingly, other members with children in small rural schools receive comprehensive comments on their semester reports.
It is our understanding that currently, there is no requirement for the inclusion of comments in reports, however schools choosing to provide additional information can use comment banks to alleviate workload and the comments section of the report for this purpose. The inclusion of comments is a school-based decision, and consultation must occur via the school’s local consultative committee (LCC)
Upon, consultation with the SDE we have been informed that comments on individual achievements will be provided via the Guide to Making Judgement (GTMJ) assessment feedback form. This feedback varies in content from teacher to teacher and is often very minimal and does not provide the student with an overall sense of how they are progressing and areas they can improve.
We wish to highlight that many geographically isolated (GI) children transition to boarding schools and rely on academic reports and comments on their overall performance to accompany their application for positions within these schools. In some cases, positions to boarding schools are becoming increasingly more competitive to gain entry to, due to varying criteria’s having to be met. During the transition to a new school the inclusion of general comments on semester report cards can greatly assist to provide a broader understanding of the whole child, in terms of learning engagement, contribution to the school community, comments to support effort regardless of academic grades achieved, social skills, behaviour and overall general character.
Our members have reported that application processes vary, with some schools focusing on the whole child, while others focus on academic performance. Information pertaining to the whole child, is especially important when transitioning into a boarding environment.
Previously, requested Principal recommendations complimented semester reports in the application process, now for some, it is the only available way to have these personal attributes acknowledged. We feel that they do not adequately replace semester report comments that showcase a child’s overall development at a point in time. Nor does it replace the knowledge of a child from the teacher’s perspective. In Distance Education settings students develop connections with individual teachers who can easily contribute to comments relating to academic and personal development.
Geographically isolated families often choose specific schools that offer the best educational and co-curricular offerings for their child, and they deserve the best chance of achieving that. Therefore, it is concerning when these individual school-based decisions are made, allowing comprehensive reports for some students while others receive nothing but an academic grade. The concern is that this inequity could impose educational disadvantage to geographically isolated students by limiting their chance of being accepted at the school of their choice.
