RCOA offers a wide variety of options to parents who desire to educate their children at home. We are pleased to enrol DL students and also registered Homeschoolers.
Since RCOA is a Ministry funded program we are accountable to the authorities above us to ensure that enrolled students have a program that meets the PLO’s. We also seek to honour God first in all we do by maintaining the utmost integrity through being honest and fair to both the Ministry and our families. We have worked hard to be very creative and flexible in how and when these PLO’s are met. Since many popular and fantastic homeschool curriculums don’t follow the same sequence of study as the BC Ministry PLO’s, and since many homeschool families thrive by designing their program around the individual child’s interest, taking advantage of current events or family trips to select their course of study or teach topics at multiple levels in Family Unit studies, we give you broad parameters to work within especially with the content of areas of the PLO’s. We require the majority of the PLO’s to be covered for grades K-5 by the end of grade 5, and for grades 6 to 9 by the end of grade 9. Grades 10-12 courses are credit- based according to graduation requirements.
REPORTING for Individualized Courses
Regent is about relationship; the more established the relationship between parent/student and teacher the more efficient and accurate the reporting is and the more flexible we can be. This relationship begins in September with the designing of the Student Learning Plan which is a collaborative effort of the student, parent /teacher and our homelearning consultant. Over the year this relationship grows through a variety of means best suited to the individual family and can include; homevisits, email progress reports, phone conversations, participation in RCOA Resource Centre Classes, tutoring sessions, parent or student comments on the Encom PLO tracking system, optional basis skills testing, and most importantly, assessment of Portfolio content three times a year.
We believe in and support learning that takes place within the family during everyday living so sharing with your teacher about student’s outings, personal reading, church and community activities, and areas of special interest are all an integral part of giving us accurate information to give a quality assessment of student learning.
The basic system is based of electronic PLO tracking; we keep a K-12 running database of all the PLOs your student is meeting in their entire course of study while enrolled at RCOA, and this is added to and information transferred from year to year. Our teachers are responsible to assess student progress based on coverage of the content-based PLOs and development of skills-based PLOs. Progress through each subject area can be individualized by the teacher assessment of context-based PLO’s and skill-based PLO’s. As the teacher and the parent work together to encourage continued progress to the ability of each child, then grade levels become important, but secondary. RCOA desires that Language Arts and Math courses be fairly rigorously followed grade by grade, but we also desire that Socials and Science studies be covered in a way that suits each family's learning style and individual needs. For these two subjects we have asked the teacher to focus on the skills at grade level and allow the content to be more flexible. However, as a Canadian school we do believe that all relevant Canadian studies be presented.
Portfolios
We have designed Portfolio Guides to assist you in selecting a variety of samples to send to your online teacher for assessment. We have used our knowledge of the variety of homeschool styles and philosophies to make suggestions for samples that will relate to how you have chosen to design your homestudy program. Portfolios also give students an opportunity to build self-assessment skills as they select work that best demonstrates their progress. It is a showcase of their work and invites us to get to know them through their interests and achievements. This guide is also intended to help maintain consistency in our staff in their expectations and evaluation of students. (We encourage students to choose the best examples of their progress over each term so that we can make an accurate assessment.)
Portfolios may include a collection of student learning samples, Quick Scales check lists, and any other assessment tool that the family feels would contribute to the portfolio. Please include an explanation of any art work, projects, field trip pictures or other alternative work samples so that we can understand the learning demonstrated by each. Portfolios provide an opportunity to showcase authentic student learning. Aside from the personal home visits and Resource Centre class involvement, the Portfolio is a wonderfully valid and crucial way in which a teacher can get to know each student. Portfolios are submitted three times each year, on November 15 th, March 15 th and June 15 th. They should include three samples from each core subject as well as a short summary about the students learning in other subject areas. We welcome parental comments about the student’s samples and progress and we ask that students take part in self-evaluation of their contributions to the portfolios.
Portfolios:
- Help us get to know our students.
- Give students a chance to showcase their work and share their interests.
- Build self-assessment skills in our students as they select work that best illustrates their progress.
- Provide our teachers with the evidence of learning they need to assess student learning in relation to the PLO’s.
What kinds of samples go into a portfolio?
Math – photocopies of worksheets completed, pictures of student working with pattern blocks or other manipulatives, audio tape of the student counting, specific examples of the student using math in real life (such when the student calculated the tax on your purchases at the grocery store), a photocopy of the score card for Yahtzee or any other games where the student uses math to keep score, tests, etc.
Language Arts – a log of books read together or independently, audio tape of the child reading, audio tape of the child discussing the story or content of a book, written or oral narration, journal entry, letter, emergent writing, story, poem, artwork depicting their understanding of what they need to read, etc.
Science – experiment log, report, picture of an experiment, charts, surveys, observations, nature journals, artwork showcasing a student’s understanding, picture of field trip, photocopy of worksheets, etc…
Social Studies – artwork showcasing a student’s understanding, map work, list of books the student read, audio tape of the student discussing something they learned, field trip log, essays, summaries, etc…
Foreign Language – summaries from Rosetta Stone or similar language programs.
Physical Education – weekly fitness logs, athletic participation certificates from local sports organizations, descriptions of daily activities.
Fine Arts – practice logs, certifications of achievement, and letters of merit from instructors including scope and sequence of studies.
We would appreciate seeing a wide selection of students' work so that we can accurately assess the students' progress. Our ability to make an assessment rests on our evaluation of the portfolios, and conversations with our families. The more we understand about your student’s progress, the better able we are to make a thoughtful and accurate evaluation and complete the Online Progress Report. Grades are usually higher when an abundance of consistent and accurate information has been relayed from the home to the teacher.
The Grading Process – Portfolios Guides
We have grouped the guides into Primary K-3, Upper Elementary 3-6 and Intermediate 6-9. We have deliberately overlapped at grades 3 and 6 to give you maximum flexibility. An electronic copy of RCOA’s Portfolio Guides can be found here.
Each of the three have a distinctly different focus and purpose:
November – First Portfolio - the primary intent of this portfolio is to give the RCOA teacher an idea of where the student’s skills and abilities are and to establish if the curriculum and/or courses selected are working adequately for the student to achieve their goals for this academic year. The content of this portfolio in the way of samples of work is to be reflective of approximately 25% of the year’s work. First Report Cards are then issued and are strictly anecdotal.
March – Second Portfolio - this is the most substantial portfolio and the content of the portfolio in the way of samples of work is to be reflective of approximately 50% of the year’s work. This term your teacher will start by looking at the range of PLOs being met and the degree of completion (minimal, fully, & exceeds) from the student’s enrolled grade level then they take into account extended studies from other grade levels. Studies can extend back into previous levels and beyond into the next levels but we need to require that the majority of the PLOs are met from a level before moving into the next level. Second Term Report Cards are then issued and students are given letter grade or achievement levels as “in progress” and will suggest specific evidence they need to see in the third term for the student to achieve a higher grade for the overall year.
June – Third Portfolio - this is the “wrap up” portfolio and like the first portfolio will be reflective of approximately 25% of the year’s work. However the focus will be on providing specific evidences to demonstrate completion of the Student Learning Plan. Final Report Cards are issued at the end of June, complete with Indicators.
Graduation Program
The Grades 10-12 High School Graduation Program is credits based according to graduation requirements and completion provides a student with a full BC Dogwood Diploma and qualifies them for various scholarships. We are able to meet the credits in many creative ways including outside credits, dual credits that qualify for both post secondary and graduation, apprenticeships, etc... if you desire more details on the 10-12 program please contact Mark Langley. He is both Planning 10 teacher and the principal for RCOA.
Online Courses
Our Online students will be emailing their work to their teacher as they progress through the assignments. The frequency varies depending on the pace the student has chosen to work through the material, but on average contact is once a week. The teacher will post marked assignments with comments for suggested improvement and bravos (this can also be viewed by the parent online). Students are not required to submit portfolio samples, or report through weekly progress reports for Online courses since they are designed to meet the PLOs for that specific grade.
FSA TESTS
The Foundation Skills Assessment is required for grades 4 and 7 students. It is given to all students province wide and may be completed electronically. Our goal, set by the Ministry, is to see 90% of eligible students write these exams.
