Student-Led conferences

At our school, we start out the year with a Parent-Teacher conference. Students attend this aswell and part of the conference time is devoted to setting goals for the student to work towards during the school year.
During the school year, work samples are kept aside to form part of a portfolio which is presented in the last month of the school year. This conference is student-led. In other words, parents come in to school to conference with their child not the child's teachers, to reflect (using these work samples) on their growth over the past year. Teachers are present but only to "sign-off" on the goal setting process - as to whether the goals set at the start of the year have been achieved or not.

And so May 4, 2006 was our Student-Led Conference day at Dhahran Elementary Middle School, Saudi Arabia.
The girls and I took a taxi in to school at 7am (can't wait for Andrè to be home next week again). Aimee and Lucy helped mom prepare the PC Lab for the Middle School conferences.
Our MS students create electronic portfolios in tech class with Tracy. Basically a personal website which is accessible anywhere on our campus from our servers. They present them in the lab instead of their classrooms though as the conferences are done in flexi-time and we can have 30 students conferencing at one time in the lab.
8am and off to Wilde Gang for the girls while mom 'played' teacher for a bit. Lucy was scheduled for her conference at 9am, so we headed up to Preschool to be amazed at all she'd done in the year :)

Photo of Lucy conferencing courtesy of Aimee :)


Lucy wasn't as animated this year with her "Bam and then .... happened" or "Voilà and there ..." but she did a great job showing her handwriting samples, math worksheets, coloring and beautiful art projects. Thanks go to Mrs. Sheila Rivers, Mrs. Rima Maalouf, Mrs. Neomy Daniel and Mrs. Jannet Durham - all her teachers.

Lucy with her portfolios - big sister Aimee had to hold the art portfolio for her :)

Lucy standing in front of one of the murals preschool created while doing their theme on transportation and then under the 'planet hats' they used while studying space (Lucy was Jupiter) :)


And then it was off to Aimee's classroom to share her portfolio.
Aimee did a fabulous job ! She has made soooo much progress this year although I could still pick up on some disappointments while she shared her work. Aimee has had a very demanding teacher this year which would normally be fabulous. However even with the help of her meds for her ADHD she has had a hard time in grade one. There were a few times during her conference that I heard "...but I didn't finsh" or "...thats as far as I got". It is a point to remember that these portfolios are not entirely for showing the best pieces but it is meant to be a true sample of the child's accomplishments throughout the year. I made a point then to make a big deal about the good things and gloss over on the disappoinments. All-in-all I tried to made sure that Aimee realised how clever she is and that her mom and dad are so very proud of her !


Dad will have to watch the video and go through the actual portfolios when he gets back next week.
Aimee and Lucy went back to Wilde Gang for the remainder of the day while mom went back to be a part of her students' presentations to their parents. Thankfully this year I could witness huge growth in my students from their efforts last year and we had a very successful presentation of our electronic portfolios to our MS parents !

It's Friday now and we're having a tv, jammies & junkfood day :) In recognition of our efforts to prepare for these conferences hehehe
Just one month left of school - WOW !

Charnè hope you had a very special day on the 3rd and little Jaden is not keeping you too busy :)
Aunty Elaine, hope you have a wonderful 60th birthday celebration, miss you all and wish we were there to share it !
Cheers for now everybody, have a good one, check back next week again for the latest in our lives hehehe :)
xxx