How to Stay Up to Date With Your Child and Their Overall Progress

Want to stay up to date with your child and their overall progress but don’t want to come across as too pushy?

We’ll be sharing our strategies so that you can stay informed about your child’s progress and keep them accountable for their goals.

Keep scrolling to find out more about staying inform with your child and their progress!

How can you stay up to date with your child and their overall progress?

Tip #1: Attend parent-teacher conferences

Tip #2: Review Reports & Check Results

Tip #3: Encourage Subject Discussions

Tip #4: Weekly Check Ins

Tip #5: Be Aware of Important Dates

How can you stay up to date with your child and their overall progress?

“While they completely supported my need for autonomy, they always made sure they were aware of how I was performing at school, praising improvement and trying to understand the reasons behind slipping marks.” — Alice (95.85 ATAR)

If you aren’t informed on where they are actually at in terms of study, preparation and emotional capacity, there is no way you can actually keep them accountable! 

So, what are ways that you can stay up to date with your child and their overall progress?

While some of these may be quite obvious, it’s important to note that these were all strategies that students identified that they found their parents used in a helpful way to stay up to date (without being too pushy).

“They gave me space to explore my subjects creatively and encouraged studying partnerships with other students. There were no threats regarding results, rather they showed an interest in the content of my subjects and engaged me in conversations about my ideas and arguments.” — James (99.6 ATAR)

The key for all of these however to work (and to not appear as being pushy) is to set the ground rules prior to Year 11 and 12.

What does this mean?

Rather than all of a sudden out of the blue begin implementing each of these strategies to stay informed (which will then definitely appear and feel pushy and potentially overbearing to your child) sit down with your child and have a discussion with them about:

• • The fact that they are responsible to themselves (and not you)
  • How as a result they will have lots of freedom in how they study or navigate Year 11 and 12
  • How you will stay informed or involved to keep them accountable to THEIR goals

Haven’t had this chat yet? Better late than never!

So, now that the ground rules have been laid out, let’s briefly explore each of the ways in which you can stay informed about your child and their overall progress (with a focus on the benefits of each one):

Tip #1: Attend parent-teacher conferences

Interestingly, while a lot of parents make a point to attend their child’s parent-teacher conferences when they are in junior school (Year 7-10), when their child gets into Year 11 and 12, parent attendances at these conferences tend to drop off — perhaps in an effort to give their child independence, or in an exercise of trust.

While giving your child independence and trust is critical — this doesn’t mean you should avoid attending parent-teacher conferences!

Parent-teacher conferences are an ideal opportunity to get a broader (and independent) perspective on how your child is going (despite perhaps your child’s own protestations), and potentially what they need to do differently.

“They did help keep me accountable by attending all parent-teacher interviews, going through my report with me and constantly checking whether I was keeping up with my workload or if I needed tutor/mentor support.” — Renae (99.2 ATAR)

This gives you the tools and insight to be able to better engage with them in discussions on their progress towards their goals and make recommendations on how they better achieve their goals.

“My parents participated in parent-teacher conferences and discussed with my teachers the best methods I could use to further improve my results and study skills.” — Jeremy (99.4 ATAR)

Tip #2: Review Reports & Check Results

“My parents kept tabs of my results from the half-yearlies and yearlies then responded accordingly. For example, they encouraged me to tell them if I needed anything.” — Christine (97.95 ATAR)

While keeping tabs on results is a powerful tool for accountability, it also needs to be conducted with great care.

From working with students over the last 8 years, there have been many occasions when, due to a fear of an adverse reaction from parents, students have simply hidden their results (or in some cases, actually modified them)!

At a basic level reviewing reports and results your child receives regularly is a great tool for you to keep them accountable to THEIR goals (I continue to stress this as it’s absolutely key). It allows you to facilitate a discussion with your child about their progress — whether they are moving towards their goals, and what they can do differently. 

But what should this process or discussion look like? And what are some key things to think about? 

First and foremost, resist the urge (at all costs) to say something along the lines of “What happened?” or “How come you only got…”. While it might be your first instinct (hopefully not) it will shut down any open and meaningful conversation.

Always be positive and encouraging! If the results are good or constitute an improvement, say so!

If the results are perhaps not what you know your child was aiming for, rather than comment on the marks, ask them:

These open ended questions gives your child room to: 

Respond emotionally — perhaps they worked really hard and are frustrated. It’s vital to get these feelings out of the system before they (or you) can begin to look at the results in a rational, objective manner.

Transition their focus to their goals (so they are accountable to themselves), and an objective consideration of what they did well, and what they can change.

 

The key here is to consider what they did well (and to start with this) as it builds confidence and studies have shown that evaluating both positive takeouts, and improvements, overall improves future performance (despite our tendency only to focus on what can improve).

A couple of things to consider when engaging in this discussion with your child:

• • Consider the weighting of the assessment — was it worth a lot (25%) or a little (5%)
  • Consider that if it’s an internal (in school assessment), you halve the weighting to understand its contribution to the overall ATAR (internal marks account only for 50%)
  • While the focus is often placed on marks — ultimately the ranking your child achieves in the assessment is what matters. For example, they could have scored 50% (so a pass), but it actually ranks in the top 5 in their cohort (indicating the test was difficult). This of course doesn’t mean there isn’t any room for improvement — it just provides some context.

Tip #3: Take an Interest in Topics Being Taught at School & Encourage Subject Discussions

Based on our research with Australia’s top students, we discovered that one of the most effective ways to study and create a deep understanding of a topic is to teach others. 

Yes, that’s right. To sit down, and teach another person (or yourself, a teddy bear or your dog) the content relating to a particular topic.

While top students use this technique, it’s often a study strategy ignored by the majority of students who think that it ‘feels weird or uncomfortable to teach someone’ and because they often don’t ‘have anyone to teach’ (which is of course an excuse!).

Teaching other works for many reasons — but at a basic level it’s a great way to expose a student to live, instantaneous feedback on their level of understanding (and thus, keep them accountable to their study, and their goals!).

When a student teaches someone — for example yourself as their parent, or a friend — it exposes them to questions about the content, requests for clarification, and requests for additional/extension information, all of which they need to respond to from memory, on the spot exposing them to a very objective test of how well they know the material.

As a result, taking an interest in the topics they are studying at school and using this to facilitate discussions or your child teaching you is a powerful way to keep them accountable to their goals by giving them feedback on their knowledge (+ helping them develop a deep understanding of the material).

How can you engage your child in these discussions or get them to teach you?

Con hits the nail on the head — most of the time your child (as you undoubtedly have experienced) doesn’t want to talk or teach you (of all people) the content for school. So, it needs to be a gradual process.

Start with just asking them what topics they are studying for their subjects — start one subject at a time. As they explain the topics and you become familiar with them, slowly begin asking ‘clarifying questions’ like:

What these questions enable you to do is to slowly get your child to open up and ‘teach’ you the content for the subject as well as making them reflect on the material and what they have learnt that week in class.

Their answers will also reflect to you and to them their level of understanding, enabling you to facilitate a discussion on whether their study is on track to enable them to achieve their goals.

Sometimes the best time to ask these questions is during ‘dead-time’ — but what’s dead time? The time that you spend in the car acting as a taxi driver for them, driving them to school, sport or extracurricular commitments!

This time adds up and is dead time in that it isn’t typically productive study time, and it isn’t leisure time either. Plus, the added bonus is your child cannot easily escape your questions! 

Once you have got your child informally teaching you the course content, transition (in addition) to more formally organised sit downs where they teach you topics, especially prior to exams!

The key here is being available (with your time, energy and focus) to get involved — as Caitlin (93.5 ATAR) commented,

 

“My parents encouraged me by taking a keen interest in the topics I was studying, and were also available for discussion on the existential questions in Hamlet or the binomial theorem.”

Tip #4: Weekly Check Ins

Weekly check-ins are a great way to:

• • Find out how your child went in any exams or assessments during the week
  • Find out how they are coping emotionally
  • Ask them to give you an overview of what they learnt or get them to teach you

Having a formal time or day for check-ins often isn’t practical (and doesn’t work as it can be forced). It’s more about having the awareness to check in consciously on progress.

“My parents didn’t necessarily keep me accountable, because they knew that I was the one who desired to achieve high results and that sense of “ownership” was my own and not theirs. They did however, constantly check up on me and ensure that I remained in a positive mindset throughout my studies.” — Dylan (98.75 ATAR)

Tip #5: Be Aware of Important Dates

Finally, be aware of important dates — assessments, Trials, HSC Exams. If you don’t know when the exams are, it will be hard to keep your child accountable to their goals — are they doing enough study? Is it a quiet point which they can use to recharge and refuel?

As Stephanie (96.1 ATAR) explained,

 

“In terms of keeping me accountable, my parents would always ensure they were aware of important due dates so that they could know and check that I was on track.”

We recommend writing down the key dates on a shared family calendar well in advance so that the whole family is on the same page!

And that’s it!

We hope these 5 strategies are ones you will implement to check in on the progress of your child, as well as keep them accountable for the goals they’d like to achieve!

By keeping up to date with their progress, it doesn’t mean that you’re taking away their independence or that you don’t trust them — it’s so you can truly engage with their learning. Staying informed will only give you the opportunity to help them better.

Learn about how you can encourage your child to do their best during the HSC here!

Are you looking for some extra help for your child during the HSC?

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