Online Service Consent Form and Information
Very soon a new online form will be emailed to all parents seeking consent for the use of 3rd party services (websites and services outside of the Education Queensland network) so that we can use these for students as part of their educational activities in class. In the past when teachers wished to utilise some of these services a paper based form would be sent home. This new online form will greatly speed up the process as your responses are sent digitally back to the school when you submit the survey. This way if a teacher starts to use one of the services we can quickly assess if they have consent and can proceed quickly.
The consent granted by this form is for the duration of the student’s current phase of learning (i.e. Years P-3, 4-6, 7-9 and 10-12). Consent is obtained upon enrolment and renewed when students move into a new phase of learning (e.g. minimum every four years) however, there may be circumstances where our school issues a new consent form to seek additional consent e.g., in the event that new online services are identified for use. As this process is new all parents in 2021 will be required to provide their consent. From this year onwards, as stated above, the form will only need renewing when students move to another phase of learning i.e. year 4 in primary school.
Please note in many cases two parent families will potentially receive two emails (based on your supplied contact information). Only one parent is required to complete the form for a child. We do not require both parents to complete the form. One is sufficient.
A full explanation of the reasons for needing these forms and other important information will be in the email and the survey itself so there is no need to expand on this here. Instead this news item is going to briefly showcase which services we are asking consent for. Three of the services are mainly for student educational activities across various subject areas. The fourth is a service that provides school assessment and diagnostic information that teachers find invaluable on how students are progressing in the areas being tested.
If you have any questions about the services or the online survey consent form do not hesitate to contact Mr Adrian Greig for information. His contact details are in the email you will receive. NB parents without contact email addresses will receive a paper copy of the consent form.
3rd Party Online Educational Services
Studyladder - https://www.studyladder.com.au/
Studyladder has been a favourite go to educational site, for teachers over the years covering many subject areas. This site requires a sign in by students. Teachers can assign work, differentiated to meet their needs, for each student and the system records their progress.
Teach your Monster to Read - https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/
This site is focused on letters, sounds and reading. Designed for beginning readers 3-8 years old it can also be used to support student's needing additional support. This whole site is free online via computers and records student's progress as they progress through the 3 levels of activities (First Steps, Word Play and Champion Reader). It is a highly engaging way to get children into reading and has a number of tools teachers can use to focus on phonics and reading.
Check out the video below
Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms is an online survey, quiz and polling tool that is part of the Microsoft Office 365 service that is free for all state school students to use. This tool allows teachers to create activities for students to engage with and embed these into various places like Class Notebooks or Microsoft Teams. It would have been great to have it during Learning from Home last year. A short intro video of it is below.
ACER Online Assessment and Reporting System (OARS) - https://www.acer.org/au/assessment/school-assessments
"ACER is a recognised international leader in the development of educational assessment and reporting tools for schools and systems." Maleny State School uses a few of their excellent online assessment tools (e.g. eWrite and PAT) to conduct assessment on our students to help provide us with invaluable information on how our students are progressing. With this data we can better plan how to support children with their learning, either to extend or to target support where it is needed.
