Guide · · Daniel Schmidheiny
Documenting learning at home: the learning report without extra work
If you learn at home, at some point you’ll want to show what your child has learned. A good report shows it in a few pages. It’s easiest to build it as you go, over the course of the year.
What exactly is required differs from canton to canton. But the questions a report should answer are almost always the same.
What a report answers
- How much was learned, and does it match the plan?
- What was learned, across all subject areas and not just German and maths?
- With what: which teaching materials, which topics?
- How is the child doing: what comes easily, where do they need more time?
What a good report contains
First, an overview by subject: planned and actual learning time per subject area, plus teaching materials and topics. This is usually the page people look at first.
Then examples of work. A photo of the essay, the experiment or the drawing is enough, with one sentence about it. Three good examples per subject say more than a thick folder.
The child’s own voice matters just as much. In short reviews they note what went well and what they want to do next, and that’s where personal and social skills show, which are hard to measure in hours.
And finally everything that happens outside the subjects: music school, sports club, outings, projects.
Collect as you go
It gets tedious when you have to reconstruct a whole year in June. A few seconds a day are enough: tick off the task, record the time, add a photo now and then. In June, all that’s left is to summarise.
How the report comes together in Rondino
Rondino builds the report from what happens in everyday life anyway. Under Analytics › “Create report” you choose the child and the period. The report contains:
- the overview by subject with target and actual time, teaching materials, focus subjects and topics, calculated from the time budget in your yearly plan,
- documented work with a photo or short description, sorted by subject,
- other activities outside the subjects,
- the learning portfolio with the children’s weekly reviews and your comment,
- space for place, date and signature.
You decide what goes in under “Customise report”, and save it as a PDF from the print dialog.
Not just in June
You can create the report at any time, for any period. A look in the autumn shows early on where the time budget doesn’t add up or a subject is falling short. That leaves enough time to adjust the plan. You’ll find what else Rondino can do under Features.
Two or three photos of work a week are enough. At the end you have a selection without filling a folder.