<p>Fellow Parents,</p>
<p>Do you get your boarding school student, or his teachers, to share with you the written feedback, if any, that his teachers are providing to him on the essays he turns in electronically? If so, how do you do it?</p>
<p>You will get gloriously detailed term reports from each teacher at the end of each term usually available through the school’s parents portal, but unless your student is sharing graded homework with you, I’m not aware of any way (or reason) to request assignment-level feedback. If there is reason for concern, usually the student’s advisor and teacher(s) will be on top of any issues. Can you share your specific reason for this inquiry? We may be able to help you out if we understand the reason for the question.</p>
<p>At my kids’ school the teachers usually show an example of a paper (or other assignment) with written feedback at teacher conferences during parent’s weekend. Each teacher also provides comments via the parents portal at midterm (later this week) and end of term.</p>
<p>If you’re simply curious about the feedback your student is getting on papers, you could ask your student to email copies of some papers to you. If they’re getting back marked-up paper copies, they could photograph a couple of papers with their phone and send them to you. However, if you think there’s a problem, then this would be a good time to contact the student’s advisor if you haven’t already.</p>
<p>Thanks, Photodad and ChoatieMom, the kid has agreed to share whatever written comments he gets.</p>
<p>As they said at Loomis orientation when a parent asked a similar question: “There’s a reason we’re known as an independent school.”</p>
<p>FWIW, @BigValley, ChoatieKid is a junior and I’ve yet to see any of his work.</p>
<p>I share the school’s sentiment, PD, but that answer sounds a bit flip to my ear! </p>
<p>At the risk of a hijack, do the parent portals of anybody’s BS do anything more than deliver midterm and end of term comments? (Such as test scores or homework performance?)</p>
<p>Im interested in this too - kinda surprised that the assumption is less access/ info for parents is better. Its a bit unfair to assume every parent is a helicopter type.</p>
<p>At Chimney kids public school, parents and students have on-line access to every grade the day they are posted as well as their term averages. It is enormously helpful information for both students and parents and, surprisingly, a comfort to my kids who were previously in a school that gave no grades - a situation designed to create a more relaxed learning environment that actually had the opposite effect for our family. </p>
<p>Having your parents involved with your school work can be a big positive. Not every parent is waiting in the wings to brow beat the child who receives a b+ although its easy to imagine some parents being unable to separate.</p>
<p>In our case, the only things shared with us are the good things. LOL seriously, we do not get specific feedback. She knows she holds the cards on this one — and she also holds all the responsibility. I would love to know more details but mostly because I am curious (she might say “nosy”) …</p>
<p>PelicanDad: great quote.</p>
<p>And as for online access, an argument could be made either way on that one. While I can see value is keeping tabs, I have to say that (at least in our case) a big part of the decision to let her go away was that she would learn independence and self advocacy. It is up to her now.</p>
<p>Are there ANY high schools where teachers give directly to the parents written feedback on their kid’s essays?</p>
<p>The schools we know send reports on grades at preordained points in the marking period; the final grades include detailed reports on the student’s work in each class. The reports touch not only on the level of performance, but also the student’s class performance and oberved work ethic for the subject. </p>
<p>Our children have occasionally shown us written work they’re particularly proud of. They have also at times discussed the feedback they’ve received from teachers on current projects. </p>
<p>However, I don’t see the point of sending one’s child to boarding school, but demanding frequent updates on performance. Boarding school students (in my experience as a parent) grow accustomed to frequent writing, performed under time pressure. The students learn that a bad grade is not the end of the world. They learn resilience. For students accustomed to leading the pack in middle school, the transition to boarding school grading is a shock. </p>
<p>We, as parents, are not part of the community. We may put pressure on our children to “work harder,” without a full knowledge of their daily schedule. We may freak out about a test grade which will, in the end, make no difference to the year-end grade. The teachers do understand that the students are balancing multiple time commitments. </p>
<p>I would not want to be able to monitor my child’s performance after every test or homework. </p>
<p>If you want feedback from teachers on your child’s performance, visit campus after he or she had been part of the school community for some time. Parents’ Weekend is a good time to visit campus, as are on-campus games. You should schedule a conference with your child’s advisor. He or she should be able to give you a fuller feedback on your child’s performance.</p>
<p>+1 to Periwinkle. And love the line about “independent schools.” It’s hard for me to even see what good it would do to see the written comments SoxKid gets on essays he turns in. I’m not going to be sitting there next to him while he writes the next essay to see if he’s incorporating the feedback he’s getting, and he needs to learn to do that himself. Even if I had the comments, the most I’d say to him anyway would be a more general statement that I hope he’s learning from the comments he gets and working on those issues for the next one.</p>
<p>IMHO, looking at the back and forth between the teacher and the kid is by far the best way to tell if the kid is getting effective instruction at school. Particularly if you have a kid whose test results show he was more than ready for college in 7th grade, I don’t know how you can know if he is actually learning to be a better writer in school if you don’t see his schoolwork and the feedback he’s getting on it. I know we tend to trust the services of schools we pay for. I love my kids school. But I don’t think we should abdicate responsibility for seeing that the kid is actually getting the education we would like to think he is getting.</p>
<p>I guess I do just assume that my kid is getting effective instruction at his school. I do often see teacher’s comments–because I’m an English teacher and my kid knows I like to see how other teacher’s comment on his papers, he’ll sometimes electronically send me a marked-up copy of an essay, and at the end of term always brings his papers home to share and file away. However, as much as I enjoy reading both his essays and his teacher’s comments, they don’t lend much insight into how the paper was taught as the instruction happens in class, in comments on rough drafts, and in conferences. A final draft is the result of that learning to be a better writer. It might contain some corrections or questions, but those comments are just one small piece of the overall process and not a true reflection of the back and forth between teacher and kid. (I know, for example, that my kid will sometimes completely scrap a paper as a result of a conference with a teacher and will almost always significantly revise it.)</p>
<p>ClassicalMama, sounds like you’re seeing enough of his work and the teacher comments to know whether he is getting appropriate feedback at school. I don’t think we need to see all the back and forth, and we cannot be there to pick up what is given to them orally. But I miss seeing the marked up papers public schools send home with the kid on a regular basis. And I think boarding school parents are no more likely to abuse the information those papers convey to us about the teacher and the student than public school parents are. My question was about the mechanics of how other boarding parents are getting info that students and teachers exchange through computer programs that change from time to time. I am pleased to see that my kid’s school is not the only one that does not give parents direct access to the e-portals through which students and teachers communicate. But I think my kid would probably produce better essays if he knew I was going to be seeing them, and I am glad he has agreed to share drafts and comments from here on out.</p>
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Boarding schools are not a good fit for helicopter parents</p>
<p>A large part of the education at boarding schools happens in the classroom, and in extracurriculars. The best skill a student can learn is how to advocate for himself. Learning to monitor his own progress, and learning to schedule appointments with his teacher, will stand him in good stead in college. If your son meets with his teacher outside of class, (and he should), the feedback will not be written. Some schools also set up peer tutors, which colleges often offer as well.</p>
<p>Many leading boarding schools enroll students who attended rigorous K-8 private schools which always have, and always will, stress writing. Thus, your child may write quite well for his age, but find he has to play “catch up” with his peers at boarding school. </p>
<p>I agree with GMTplus7. Reading the teacher’s comments is not the best way to monitor your child’s education. At what point do you plan to stop?</p>
<p>Plus you might find that the teachers themselves will expect corrections and will give guidance. That is, after all, their job. Seems like the kids might even respond better to a “stranger” giving input – vs. the traditional “tune out” many kids give their own parents…</p>
<p>Wow, Periwinkle. I didn’t see anything in GMT7’s post that supports your claim that “reading the teacher’s comments is not the best way to monitor your child’s education.” All GMT& did was use that scary “h” word in a way that comes close to name-calling. I also don’t see in your past any better ideas for monitoring a boarding students education. Rather, you are simply saying that the monitoring is inappropriate at boarding school because some kids need to play catch up. No one said my kid was having to play catch up. Quite the contrary, I think most readers would be able to guess that a kid with the test scores I alluded to is more likely to be sliding his way into straight A’s. Anyway, you’re entitled to opine that monitoring is inappropriate, but its not responsive to my question, and sounds a bit shrill with all the piling on.</p>