As our first term starts to draw to its conclusion, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our Junior School teachers and Junior School parents for their active involvement on Seesaw. We are very excited by this platform and by how actively our Prem community has been engaging with it. Here are some analytics from the beginning of this school year until now.

Why do we use Seesaw in the Junior School?

It is important that our parent community understands why we use Seesaw. This platform serves a variety of purposes. These include:

• A primary purpose of Seesaw is to make learning visible. Learning in the PYP and learning at Prem probably looks a little bit different compared to when you were a junior school student. Seesaw gives us an opportunity to share with you learning in real time. Our teachers will provide accompanying text to help our parents understand how, what and why our students learn the way they do. Our teachers are experienced, skilled and intentional educators. I hope Seesaw is offering you a lens to see how powerful the learning experiences are that our educators are creating for your children.

• Seesaw serves as a form of reporting in the Junior School. In addition to report cards and conferences, we triangulate our reporting with this third layer of evidence. With some of our posts, we aim to give you a sense of both what your child is learning and how they are achieving. While this type of reporting is neither standardized nor quantitative, the photos, videos, and accompanying text provide rich qualitative examples of the knowledge, skills and dispositions that your children are learning at Prem.

• Seesaw serves as a digital portfolio for our students, allowing them to evidence their learning and reflect on strengths and areas for continued development. Reflection is a powerful meta-cognitive skill, a key ingredient for future success. 

• Seesaw also serves as a communication platform where teachers can post updates about what is happening and will be happening. We are trialling streamlining our communication to you through Seesaw so that you don’t have to engage with too many platforms.

We hope you are seeing the value of Seesaw. If a particular post makes you smile, please do share your appreciation with your child and/or the teacher who posted it. Our teachers and students are working really hard to bring this platform to life. Here are a few photos from Seesaw that were shared over the past few weeks. 

Justin Jarman

Junior School Principal