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By Lauren de Moll

At SRV, we try very hard to balance the kinds of information that we give parents about their children. Each year there are at least two parent-teacher conferences at all age levels (November and February), and parents of students in Kindergarten and up receive two sets of skills checklists (November and June). Each of these vehicles serves specific purposes, and provides parents and teachers helpful information about the students' learning. Then at the end of February, and again in June, all SRV parents receive narrative progress reports about their children.

In the winter narrative reports, group teachers write in-depth descriptions of the students as they are in school and as learners. They cover the students' physical stance and development, their emotional well-being, social skills and development, and their learning dispositions, personal strengths and interests.

The group teachers also describe the students' learning in each of the academic areas. For the youngest students, this includes glimpses of where the children are developmentally in terms of their acquisition of early literacy and number concepts and skills. The focus, however, is on how the children are engaging in early formal learning experiences. Teachers describe the children's interests, their ability to focus, their approach to new experiences – in short, the dispositions and aptitudes they will need to have to tackle formal learning as they get older.

For the older students, the group teachers describe, to some degree, specific skills and learning that the students have mastered. But again, their focus is more on how the students approach learning – whether they are attentive, how they approach problem solving, whether their conceptual base is solid, and how they are able to apply learned skills and concepts to new challenges. These sketches of what teachers have learned about the children's minds and descriptions of their learning habits help parents and teachers understand the students' strengths and challenges, and strategize about how best to challenge and support them in the future.

The special teachers also contribute to the winter narratives (or in a couple of cases, to the June ones). Specials teachers describe in brief some of the major goals of their programs, and specific curricula that the students have been learning at each level. They also write about how the individual students are learning in their classrooms. Again, the focus is not so much on specific skills and concepts that the students have mastered, but on whether they are motivated, how they are engaged, where they show strength, and what is challenging.

Every year, some parents ask us to please just tell them where there children stand – how do they compare to other students their age, do they measure up to what kids are learning in other schools. We advise them to look to the checklists to give them an idea about this, or ask their child's teachers. Our narratives are not about comparing children to one another, but about describing and celebrating them as complex individuals. In fact, many parents are astonished about how well the teachers at SRV really know their students. And often, alumni tell us years later that their narrative reports from SRV are so perceptive that they could be describing who they are as adults. Try getting that from a report card!