Dear Parents,

The students are excited to welcome you to our classroom on Wednesday or Thursday. Please let me know if you need a reminder of your conference time. Your child has planned their agenda so that you get to see a variety of work and how things work in 3EV. This gives your child a chance to share successes and challenges and set goals for the remainder of the school year, 

While students will be leading the discussion, you the parent have an important job as well. You are tasked with asking them questions about their learning. These are open-ended questions and your child might not have the most reflective answer in the moment, but it is important that the conference is about the students thinking their strengths and areas for growth and evaluating that as best they can. While students have written down specific goals they have, I think through a lengthy discussion, they will continue to think deeper and reflect more on who they are as a learner and where they want to be by the end of grade three.  Here are the type of questions you could ask. I will print these out and have them available to you as well.

Also, the way you frame the questions can have an impact on how your child responds. For example, instead of "Why is your work incomplete?" a better question might be "I notice this is not finished, what are some things you can do in class to improve your time management?" 

Finally, your child is welcome to conduct the whole conference in whatever language is most comfortable for them and you. You are welcome to conduct all or part of your home language.

I look forward to seeing you either tomorrow or Thursday!