Learning Review Meetings

Parents’ Guide to Learning Review Meetings at Willow Tree Primary School

All parents want the best for their children. At Willow Tree Primary School, we are committed to helping all children reach their full potential. To accelerate their rate of progress, we have introduced a new method of tracking your child’s progress and setting targets for improvement. It is called Learning Review Meetings.

Learning Review Meetings brings together many outstanding school systems in one place. It is a focussed, child centred, collaborative approach based on a dialogue about your child’s present and future learning needs with the aims of:

• raising standards for all children
• motivating and involving children in their learning
• informing and involving parents in their child’s learning

Why are Learning Review Meetings important?

It is a way of working that focusses on each child’s individual strengths and areas of need. School wide systems have been put in place to track each child’s progress carefully, set targets and plan any necessary interventions to meet the children’s needs.

 How will Learning Review Meetings benefit my child? 

• Every child from Year One to Year Six will have a greater understanding and ownership of their own targets through the regular use of their own Learning Review File.  This file will contain their target sheets and their assessment and progress data.
• Every child will have targets for reading, writing, maths and behaviour for learning attributes, for example, presentation of work, attitude to homework, wearing of correct uniform, bringing into school PE kit, attendance, and punctuality.  This file, containing progress evidence, will form the basis of your child’s learning review meetings.
• Every child will have the opportunity to meet with their teacher on an individual basis four times a year to talk positively about their progress, their targets, their attitude to learning and their effort in class.
• Children will be encouraged to reflect on how well they are doing in relation to their own personal learning targets.  This will form the basis of the children’s dialogue with the teacher so they have a clear understanding of what their targets mean and how they can achieve them.
• Children will have the opportunity to discuss with their teacher the approaches and strategies that work best for them in class.  Any barriers to learning are identified and next steps will be discussed with the child. Targets are reviewed.
• Children become more motivated to succeed and meet their targets when they know there are high expectations that they will achieve them.

How do Learning Review Meetings and Parents’ Evenings enrich the Parent/School Partnership? 

• They will enable parents/carers and school to work as a team to ensure every child reaches their full potential.
• At parents’ evening, parents will be given consistent, evidence-based judgements regarding their child’s attainment, achievement, and attitude.  The child’s Learning Review File will be used in the discussion.
• The dialogue with the teacher can focus in on what additional support and strategies can be undertaken at home to maximise progress for the child.

We believe that Learning Review Meetings will empower children to understand what they need to do to reach their full potential by working closely with their class teacher to achieve personal targets.

The first section of the meeting is the behaviour for learning grading. Children are encouraged to select the colour (green, yellow or red) that best represents their learning.

Below is an example of our behaviour for learning sheet.

Tracking Progress and Attainment

Through the learning review meetings, we also talk to children about their attainment and progress.  It is important that the children understand where they are working in relation to age related expectations.

Setting personal targets

We also set targets with the children. They actively look at their learning and determine what targets they think they need to work on. Below is an example.