As I reflected on the various Touchstone Issue 1 2020/21 articles written by various members of the ISB parent community, dove even deeper into the ES Parent Survey data from May 2020, connected with parents at last week’s ES Parent Engage session, and spoke with dozens of parent volunteers who were on campus this week leading activities for Intercultural Week, I was reminded of how challenging it’s been to strengthen our home-school partnerships with various COVID-19 precautionary measures in place limiting the number of parent partnership events on campus. A great big THANK YOU goes out to our teachers for using a wide variety of strategies such as updates and Seesaw posts to keep parents informed of the learning happening in the classrooms AND a great big THANK YOU goes out to parents for maintaining a strong connection from a distance!
Speaking of the May 2020 ES parent survey results, the entire ES faculty combed through all the feedback pertaining to virtual school in September in order to use this information to develop the new ES Community Virtual School Handbook and VS Procedures for ES Teachers. In addition the ES administration reviewed all of the parent (P), grades 3-5 student (S), and teacher (T) survey feedback. Based on the feedback we targeted three areas of improvement including virtual school, home-school partnerships, and prioritized areas in regards to teaching and learning as defined within the ISB Strategic Learning Plans.
In regards to celebrations and positive feedback, the parent (P), grades 3-5 student (S), and/or teacher (T) survey data reflected the following:
- Children are happy at ISB; ISB provides a nurturing environment. (P,S,T)
- Parent experience as an ISB community member is positive. (P)
- Overall, ISB is a good school for students and teachers. (P,S,T)
- Children are physically safe at ISB. (P,S,T)
- Students are becoming passionate, reflective learners. (T)
- Satisfied with quality of teachers; teachers understand student strengths & needs. (P)
- Teachers regularly use formative assessment data and differentiated strategies to meet the learning needs of individual students. (T)
- Teachers are excited about the subjects and give valuable feedback (S).
- Teachers allow students to share opinions. (S)
Lastly, please continue to save these dates and join us for future ES Parent Engage sessions:
Nov. 26 – Virtual Parent Engage via Zoom – ES Community Virtual School Handbook @ 8AM https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82240982806
Jan. 21 – Growing Readers – Selecting Just Right Books, Reading Progressions and Skills
Feb. 4 – Growing Mathematicians – Math Foundational Skills and Skill Progression to High Level Mathematics
Mar. 4 – Growing Innovators – Design, Technology and Engineering Skills in the ES
May 13 – Looking Back, Looking Ahead
Your partner in education,
Michael Allen
michaela@isb.ac.th