06 June 2025
The last few weeks have seen a great deal of Parent-Teacher Interviews taking place during the afternoons and evenings in the Pentreath Building. These are very busy nights for both teachers and parents; a perennial challenge for staff members at the end of a PTI evening is ‘switching off’ after hours of continuous and hugely important dialogue. I drive my family mad when I get home by speaking to them as if I were still in a formal interview – my children do not find my enthusiastic reflections on their learning growth particularly soothing at bed-time!
In any case, all SPSC classroom teachers work hard to support our young men in understanding how they can continue to improve and achieve their own brand of excellence in their studies. Empowering boys to drive their own growth is paramount.
Possibly the most important way we do this is through feedback, of which PTIs are only one aspect. Academic feedback at St Peter’s College will always vary depending on who the student is and what they are studying. Nevertheless, all St Peter’s College teachers are committed to connecting the boys in their classes to feedback that is timely, constructive and clear. We also believe in the power of continuous reporting, whereby students receive regular updates on their academic performance throughout the year, rather than waiting until it is too late to put the feedback into action. Keystone offers boys a great deal of feedback on additional aspects of their learning journey through tools like My Actions, of course, but I am more focused here on academic data. The purpose of offering this kind of feedback is to ensure our boys carry with them an ongoing understanding of how they are performing academically, where they can improve and what this improvement could look like. If a student lacks an understanding of these things it is essential that they speak to their teacher immediately to rectify the situation; academic growth is very difficult otherwise.
Feedback comes in all shapes and sizes, ranging from something as simple as a teacher nodding their head all the way to a comprehensive SACE drafting process. Feedback can be oral, written, informal, formal, descriptive, evaluative, peer or self-assessed. Good feedback does not only have to come from a classroom teacher, either; across the School, SPSC boys regularly seek out feedback from other teachers, the DLN team, academic leadership and other trusted adults. In addition to this, many students attend Faculty Support Sessions and work with our Old Scholar Academic Mentor Program. As above, Parent-Teacher Interviews are also an excellent way of accessing meaningful feedback.
It is important to remember that value of feedback is not tied up in its length; feedback is most valuable when it allows a student to do something meaningful with it. This means, in the words of Professor Dylan Wiliam (possibly the pre-eminent worldwide expert on assessment and reporting), that feedback should be more work for a student than their teacher. Even so, St Peter’s College teachers take great care and time to offer relevant insights to students, and we are lucky to work with young men who – more often than not – honour that act of love.
I enjoyed meeting more parents and caregivers at the Year 7 and 9 Parent-Teacher Interviews last night, and I did my best to pack away my ‘teacher voice’ before I returned home!
Mr Nick Carter
Deputy Headmaster / Teaching and Learning
