Three Way Conferences

In our constant strive to enhance our teaching and your child's learning we are introducing our teacher-led and student supported Three-Way Conferences. Over the year we will have two of these conferences; the first either late Term One or early Term Two and the second in Term Three.

The Conference Organisation

10 minutes conferencing (there will be an opportunity during this time for a discussion without your child present if requested by their teacher or yourself).

Parents will be able to book on-line an appointment or alternatively a booking sheet will be sent home that can be completed and returned to school. The school will then assign times and send a confirmation note home.

After the Conference a summary sheet will be sent home. This will note the key elements of what was discussed and in particular will focus on goals etc.

Why Have Your Child Part of this Experience?

It is recognised that if our children are to be successful in the future they must be given the skills to learn how to learn. This links closely with our new Curriculum in many ways and in particular with the principle Learning How to Learn. We want our students to understand that learning is something they do, it is not something done to them. Strategies like three-way conferencing increasingly lead students towards becoming self-directed, independent learners.

Where Three-Way Conferences are held, students become responsible for leading the discussion and providing evidence of progress and achievement. Their task is to provide a range of work to illustrate the progress they have made. Three-Way Conferences ensure that the focus remains on the students and the critical role they have in determining their own next steps for learning.

If students are to develop as independent learners they must reflect on their own progress and look at what they can learn from what they have accomplished. This is becoming an integral part of their classroom programme. The Three-Way Conference is an opportunity for those supporting the learner to assist in developing their skills of reflection.

When students know assessment criteria prior to commencing work, there is a much greater likelihood that the learning goals will be achieved. Students can assess their own work against stated standards. Clear performance standards give students a goal towards which they should strive. They know what is required to achieve.

These understandings give students skills for life in learning how to learn. We are empowering them to become self directed, independent, life long learners, able to cope with whatever challenges they may face in the future.

Your Role as a Parent

Be an active participant in your child's learning. Focus on learning about processes (skills) not content (facts).

Ask questions about their learning and next steps for future learning.

Questions you could ask your child to help discuss their learning

• What did you learn on this task/unit?
• What is this task about?
• What important things did you learn from this?
• What do you need help with?
• How did you learn this?
• What are your next goals?
• What have you done well?
• Why do you think this is such a good example of....?
• Tell me why you think you are doing well?
• How could you improve this?
• What did you find difficult?

Some theory to support this initiative...

Metacognition is our ability to know what we know and what we don't know. It is our ability to plan a strategy for producing what information is needed, to be conscious of our own steps and strategies during the act of problem solving, and to reflect on and evaluate the productiveness of our own thinking. Thinking about thinking begets more thinking (Costa 1991).

Reflection is the key to metacognition - the process of learning to learn. Reflection encourages students to think about their own thinking. It develops their ability to know how to think, and not simply what to think. Reflection is being able to stand back, to think about what has been done well, to identify difficulties, and to focus on areas for improvement. Where students are able to reflect on thir current strengths and weaknesses, they are in a strong position to set their own future goals.

Where students set goals, individuals were shown to have made more impressive gains in terms of academic achievement...(Atman 1988).