At TISA, we believe that parent-school partnerships are important to our student success. To support these partnerships we encourage parents to join us for bi-annual Student Learning Conferences.

The purpose of the three-way conferences is to provide parents with the opportunity to meet their children’s teachers to ensure open communication throughout the year. You will have a chance to discuss the start of the course with your child and his/her teacher and to identify targets for progress throughout. Three-way conferences are 8-10 minutes in length and are held in October for all secondary students and in April for DP Students.

Our objective in introducing student-led conferences is to empower your child to actively take responsibility for his or her learning. What better way for our students to demonstrate this personal responsibility and ownership of their learning than by leading their own conference?

Student-led conferences are also a very real and powerful opportunity for your child to demonstrate his/her organization, communication and reflection skills. Unlike, traditional three way conferences, Student-led conferences provide an in-depth look at your child’s learning from his/her perspective. Student-led conferences also help us to engage parents as partners, as they are conducted in the family language of choice and actively involve parents in the goal setting process.

On conference day, you will join your child in his/her TAO classroom. Your child will do most of the talking as he or she shares with you work from each part of the curriculum. Your child will email you an invitation and agenda before the conference begins. This agenda will guide your discussion during the conference. You will be provided with a checklist and goals sheet that will help you to keep track of what your child has shared with you and allow you to record the goals you set with your child and share these with his/her TAO teacher. Guiding Questions for parents will also be provided during the conference.

In student led conferences, the spotlight is on the student. While your child’s subject teachers will not participate in the student-led conference, they have been actively involved in all stages of the preparation and have guided your child in selecting what to share from their subjects. Your child’s TAO teacher or Pastoral Coordinator will be in the room during the conference, but will not actively participate in the discussion. Their role is to answer questions of a general nature and provide support with resources and IT. After the conference, they will review the goals set with your child during TAO class.

We understand that meetings with subject teachers can also be important in supporting your child. We continue to have an Open-Door policy (see Parent-Student Handbook) and invite you to contact us to arrange a meeting with your child’s teacher whenever the need should arise.

We believe that every child should have the opportunity to share his/her learning and goals with the most important audience, you as their parents or guardians. Therefore, all students must complete a student-led conference. If it is not possible for a student to complete the conference with a parent or guardian, the student will still need to sign up for a conference with his/her TAO teacher.