Assessment, Reporting, and Conferences

Teachers observe, document, and assess children’s development throughout the year. Supervising teachers conduct formal assessments three times yearly. The formal assessments include the following:

• Developmental screening with the Ages and Stages™ Questionnaires®
  • ASQ-3™ and ASQ- SE2™ (completed throughout the fall semester)
• Narrative Reports (January)
• Portfolios (May; toddlers and preschoolers only; infants receive narrative reports every three months)

Supervising teachers conduct scheduled conferences in the fall, winter, and spring. They electronically distribute narrative reports and portfolios at least two days prior to the January and May conferences (respectively) and complete written summaries of the fall, winter, and spring conference discussions within two weeks of the conferences (please see Conferences below). Teachers access the forms and protocols for completing reports, portfolios, and conference summaries in the Teacher Folder on Google Drive.

Developmental Screening

The purpose of a screening is to identify children who may benefit from further evaluation of their development. Classroom teachers screen children in the fall between October and December using the Ages and Stages™ Questionnaires® (ASQ-3™ and ASQ-SE2™).  Scores are entered into an online website and supervising teachers are responsible for communicating with classroom team members, the director, and parents about the scores.  This procedure is outlined in detail in the Google Drive Teacher Folder.

Conferences

Supervising teachers offer scheduled conferences three times during the academic-year, in September/October, January and May, to exchange information and discuss children’s learning and development. Families receive a Narrative Report prior to the January conference and a Portfolio prior to the May conference (infants receive only narrative reports).

Conference Schedule

The assistant director plans  two-week schedules in September/October, January and May for conferences; these dates are published in the annual calendar, which is finalized on July 1.  Fort Hill teachers are asked to avoid these days when requesting time-off.

Two classroom groups conduct conferences each day, beginning at 8:30 am. The conference schedules are available in the Teacher Folder on Google Drive. The daily schedule allows for “catch up” time during the morning and time for rotating teachers to transition to different rooms. Supervising teachers are responsible for adhering to the allotted time for each conference.

Conference Staffing

The assistant director plans for a rotating teacher to cover one supervising teacher from each room to meet with families on their scheduled conference days and schedules some classroom teachers to arrive early and work overtime during the conference period to allow conferences to begin at 8:30.

We ask families to make every effort to meet at the scheduled time. If a family is unable to conference during the allotted time, the teacher makes arrangements to conference on his or her planning or personal time, or may work with the assistant director to determine if a rotating teacher is available at another time.

The daily conference staffing and schedule are available in the Teacher Folder on Google Drive. These documents detail the scheduled conferences for each day, the subs (separate from the general sub books), and the spaces, as well as the overall conference plan. The office coordinator prints copies and posts them at the reception desk during the conference period. The visual arts studio teachers places an easel with the location of the conferences and a welcome message to greet families during the conference period.

Conference Locations

Conferences are held in the library and the psychology room. If one of these spaces is unavailable, either the assistant director’s or director’s office will be available.

Conference Sign-up Sheets

The assistant director develops the schedule and sign-up sheets for the September conversations and the January and May conferences one month prior to the conference period. She distributes these to supervising teachers three weeks before the conference period. The assistant director determines the date on which all teachers will post the sign-up sheets for the January and May conferences, at least two weeks prior to the conferences.The supervising teachers e-mail all families to let them know the date the sign-up sheets will be available. The sign-up sheets for the Fall Conversations are first available on the night of the Parent Meeting in September.

Conference Content

Fall Parent Conversations

Teachers and parents exchange information about children’s transition to the school-year and goals for the year at the Initial Parent Conversations in September/October. Forms to guide the Conversation are available in the Teacher Folder on Google Drive.

January and May Conferences

The January and May conferences focus on children’s development during this time period. Forms designed to guide the January and May conferences are available in the Teacher Folder on Google Drive.

In January, teachers ask families about their plans for the summer and for the next school year and provide guidance as needed on the transition from the toddler program to preschool or from preschool to kindergarten (please see Transitions for more information about transition). Teachers document families’ plans in the Conference Summary form to guide the administration in planning the summer program and the next academic-year program.

Conference Summaries

Supervising teachers complete summaries of the conferences, which are submitted to the director and kept in each child’s file. Forms and protocols for documenting conferences are available in the Teacher Folder on Google Drive.

Reports and Portfolios

Teachers conduct observational assessments and systematically document children’s skills, knowledge, behavior, and academic accomplishments in the cognitive, language, fine and gross motor, social/emotional and life skills domains. Teachers’ observations, documentation, and assessments are ongoing and inform the experiences they plan for children. All teachers contribute to documenting the observations that are the bases of the reports and portfolios. Each supervising teacher determines a system for teachers to use to record and share the observations with the team. The supervising teachers provide all members of the teaching team an opportunity to participate in gathering and reviewing the information in the reports and portfolios.

The system for reporting to families differs in the preschool and infant/toddler levels. Toddler and preschool teachers prepare narrative reports in January and portfolios in May; if a child has identified special needs, toddler and preschool teachers write reports every three months. Infant teachers (children younger than 15 months) prepare written reports, based on the age of the child, every three months until a child reaches 15 months of age; infant teachers do not prepare portfolios for infants.

Narrative Reports

 The narrative report formats differ for preschoolers and infants/toddlers. Infant/toddler teachers access a specific form depending on the age of the child; preschool teachers use one form, which is organized by developmental domain. All templates are stored in the Google Drive Teacher Folder. Supervising teachers download the form, write the report, and save the report to their drive or desktop before sending it the director for review.

Supervising teachers are responsible for preparing all written reports with input from all the teachers on the team. In all written reports, every teacher who is part of the teaching team is offered an opportunity to contribute to the report. The supervising teacher may choose a system that works best for her. For example, a supervising teacher may want to make the reports available on a collaborative site, such as Google Docs, and provide the teaching team with access to comment or edit on the reports; or she may want to provide hard copies of the reports and ask the teaching team to write comments on the hard copy. All members of the team are offered the opportunity to review and comment on the final report.

The visual arts studio teacher and the music studio teacher also provide the classroom supervising teacher with a narrative for the report (the visual art studio supervising teacher contributes only to preschool reports). Prior to the reporting period, the supervising teachers determine a date for studio teachers to submit their narrative sections to the supervising teachers to allow time for the section to be incorporated in the final report before it is sent to the director. 

The written reports are prepared, sent to the director, and sent to families electronically. The procedure for sending and printing reports is detailed in the Google Drive Teacher Folder.

Portfolios

Supervising teachers prepare spring portfolios for toddlers and preschoolers. The portfolios are based on the research-based Work Sampling System®. Work Sampling® is a curriculum-embedded, authentic performance assessment and aligns with our philosophy and practice in the ways that it honors children’s active construction of knowledge and recognizes observation, documentation, assessment and curriculum development as interacting and reciprocal. The portfolio is a purposeful collection of a child’s work and reflects her social, emotional, physical and academic development. 

Templates for portfolio pages are available in the Teacher Folder on Google Drive. The portfolio includes “Core” domains of Personal and Social Development, Language and Literacy, Mathematical Thinking, Scientific Thinking, Social Studies, The Arts, and Physical Development, as well as “Individualized Items,” (toddlers only) which portray a child’s unique characteristics and the classroom curriculum.  

Prior to the reporting period, the supervising teachers determine a date for studio supervising teachers to submit their portfolio sections to the classroom supervising teachers to allow time for the section to be incorporated in the final portfolio before it is sent to the director. Classroom supervising teachers add the studio pages to their portfolio pages, reduce the file size, generate a pdf file, and print and email the portfolio to the director and family. Directions for reducing the file size, sending, and printing the portfolios are in the Google Drive Teacher Folder. 

The portfolio binder remains at school for the time a child is enrolled at Fort Hill. When a child leaves the school, teachers give the portfolio to the family.