Seesaw: the window into your child's classroom

As we approach the very last of our emailed weekly ‘Learning Letters’, I just wanted to remind you of the fact that as of the 24th September 2018, group messages from the Year Group Leader and Class Teachers will cease to be sent via email. Instead, these messages and notifications will come through the Seesaw App which most of you have now accessed.

If not, now is the perfect time to reach out to your teacher to get help to join the class. It is a very simple process to gain access, and our teachers will be very eager to help you join our fabulous new community.

As a school, we are extremely happy with the initial roll out of the programme and feel very satisfied that we are engaging with families on a level we’ve not seen before. The huge number of positive comments from satisfied parents have reinforced our view. It is our goal to also encourage you to engage with your child’s work as well, especially in ways which are supportive and encouraging of their efforts. A simple ‘Like’ goes a long way to making a child feel better about their work. Even better, an encouraging comment shows them that you are proud of what they are producing and that you are supportive of their learning (see picture below). The best comments are those that add something to the learning, such as ‘Great, I love the way you added punctuation to your story’, or ‘Wow, you are reading with great expression’. These comments add real value to each post and are useful to initiate conversations at home about what it is you’ve observed from one of the posts. Watch the following YouTube clip on what you can expect from our teachers, but also what we expect from you:

We need to remind you that we take child protection very seriously and that any login details should be kept safe at all times. If adding extended family members, please ensure you advise your class teacher so that they can accept any requests. Without that acceptance, access will be denied until we can verify their family connection.

As the end user of Seesaw, we hope that you interact as often as possible, but what we certainly discourage, however, are comments which are directed to the teacher, or posts which are not commented on using a constructive and positive manner. These comments are best said face-to-face with the person you are directing the comments at. Please understand that our teachers are working incredibly hard to make this a great success, and they also deserve real praise for just how open we are making our classrooms for you. My hat certainly goes off to them for just how professionally they have taken to this task of giving you access.

As always, we want to make all experiences ones that are beneficial for all. If there are features that you would like to see made available, please do let me know on Christopher.mckelvie@bisvietnam.com. We hope you love the window view into your child’s class!

Mr Chris McKelvie, Deputy Head Teacher