Dear Families,

I hope you’ve enjoyed a lovely two weeks with your children, and that much of it has been full of laughter, connecting within your family, immediate or extended, and simply a time to slow down.

Maybe we can all hold a tiny bit of that slower pace as we return….just maybe!

Returning from a school break is a natural point to want to check in with teachers on student progress. In fact, teachers are very busy doing just that. This is an intensive work period for teachers, in which they spend many hours beyond the school day to review assessments and prepare reports. If a check-in can wait for a few weeks, after Feb. 2 when you will receive your child’s report, it will be much appreciated. Of course, and as always, please DO be in touch with your child’s teachers for any concern that requires immediate attention.

The mid-year progress report serves to look at your child’s progress toward learning in all areas and to set goals for the remainder of the year.

There will be two changes to progress reports this year.

First, the progress report will include a checklist of expected learning outcomes followed by one narrative. For the Elementary Division, this represents a change from the previous format in which teachers wrote a paragraph for each subject area. Given that areas of learning overlap across subjects, and between social-emotional, academic, and physical, our intention is to develop a more cohesive, but focused narrative, providing parents with a less fragmented picture of a child’s learning. The purpose of the narrative is to highlight areas of strength and areas of challenge, and to provide nuance and supporting information that the learning outcome checklists alone don’t always capture.

Second, we are happy to introduce a new and improved student information systems database that allows for greater ease in input, access, and security. Beginning this semester, our non-medical student records will be held in an online system called BigSIS. Rather than email you an electronic copy of your child’s progress report, you’ll be invited to log in to the secure BigSIS system to download and read your child’s report.

On Friday, January 29, Middle School and ECC families will be invited to log in to access their child’s report. On Tuesday, February 2, Elementary families will be invited to log in. Look out for those invitations in your inboxes on those days.

Within this month, you’ll receive a few reminders about these changes, in Newsnotes, and also in a direct email with information and instructions on how to access your child’s progress report on BigSIS.

All the best for a wonderful return to school!

I look forward to seeing you,
Bliss