Gurfatul Quran

Gurfatul Quran
Al wajihiyah Schools soceity - Indore

How a school kept parents happy using SMS

Parents are funny creatures. When it comes to their offspring, their expectations of care and service generally escalate beyond that which they would be happy with for just themselves.

So a Queensland school recently scored 110% for customer service from parents of children returning from a school camp simply from the sending on a simple text message.

The school camp was on an island and as the weather had deteriorated and the seas become rough on the night before they were due to return home, the school took the initiative of organizing a bigger boat to ensure enhanced comfort and safety of the students and staff.

Of course parents may not have known this and remained worried.

The school took another step and sent a text message advising parents that a bigger boat had been organized, the firm arrival time of the boat and requested to know if the parents wanted to collect their children from the dock, or have them taken to school and be picked up at end of the normal school day.

By personalising the message not only with the parent’s name and the child’s name and asking for a response by SMS, there was a quick, simple and effective communication channel set up that only cost a few dollars and saved staff time and parent concern.

Principles and Indicators for Student Assessment Systems

Assessment of student learning is undergoing profound change at the same time reforms are taking place in learning goals and content standards, curriculum, instruction, the education of teachers, and the relationships among parents, communities, schools, government, and business. These Principles provide a vision of how to transform assessment systems and practices as part of wider school reform, with a particular focus on improving classroom assessment while ensuring large-scale assessment also supports learning. To best serve learning, assessment must be integrated with curriculum and instruction.

High quality assessment must rest on strong educational foundations. These foundations include organizing schools to meet the learning needs of all their students, understanding how students learn, establishing high standards for student learning, and providing equitable and adequate opportunity to learn.

The Principles reflect an "ideal"--what the National Forum on Assessment believes is the best that assessment can be and do. We understand that they will not be implemented immediately or with great ease. We do firmly hold, however, that education systems must move toward meeting these principles if assessment is to play a positive role in improving education for all students.

Principle 1: The Primary Purpose of Assessment is to Improve Student Learning

Assessment systems, including classroom and large-scale assessment, are organized around the primary purpose of improving student learning. Assessment systems provide useful information about whether students have reached important learning goals and about the progress of each student. They employ practices and methods that are consistent with learning goals, curriculum, instruction, and current knowledge of how students learn. Classroom assessment that is integrated with curriculum and instruction is the primary means of assessment. Educators assess student learning through such methods as structured and informal observations and interviews, projects and tasks, tests, performances and exhibitions, audio and videotapes, experiments, portfolios, and journals. Multiple-choice methods and assessments intended to rank order or compare students, if used, are a limited part of the assessment system. The educational consequences of assessment are evaluated to ensure that the effects are beneficial.

Principle 2: Assessment for Other Purposes Supports Student Learning

Assessment systems report on and certify student learning and provide information for school improvement and accountability by using practices that support important learning. Teachers, schools and education systems make important decisions, such as high school graduation, on the basis of information gathered over time, not a single assessment. Information for accountability and improvement comes from regular, continuing work and assessment of students in schools and from large-scale assessments. Accountability assessments use sampling procedures. Rigorous technical standards for assessment are developed and used to ensure high quality assessments and to monitor the actual educational consequences of assessment use.

Principle 3: Assessment Systems Are Fair to All Students

Assessment systems, including instruments, policies, practices and uses, are fair to all students. Assessment systems ensure that all students receive fair treatment in order not to limit students' present and future opportunities. They allow for multiple methods to assess student progress and for multiple but equivalent ways for students to express knowledge and understanding. Assessments are unbiased and reflect a student's actual knowledge. They are created or appropriately adapted and accommodations are made to meet the specific needs of particular populations, such as English language learners and students with disabilities. Educators provide students with instruction in the assessment methods that are used. Bias review committees study and approve each large-scale assessment.

Principle 4: Professional Collaboration and Development Support Assessment

Knowledgeable and fair educators are essential for high quality assessment. Assessment systems depend on educators who understand the full range of assessment purposes, use appropriately a variety of suitable methods, work collaboratively, and engage in ongoing professional development to improve their capability as assessors. Schools of education prepare teachers and other educators well for assessing a diverse student population. Educators determine and participate in professional development and work together to improve their craft. Their competence is strengthened by groups of teachers scoring student work at the district or state levels. Schools, districts, and states provide needed resources for professional development.

Principle 5: The Broad Community Participates in Assessment Development

Assessment systems draw on the community's knowledge and ensure support by including parents, community members, and students, together with educators and professionals with particular expertise, in the development of the system. Discussion of assessment purposes and methods involves a wide range of people interested in education. Parents, students, and members of the public join a variety of experts, teachers, and other educators in shaping the assessment system.

Principle 6: Communication about Assessment is Regular and Clear<

Educators, schools, districts, and states clearly and regularly discuss assessment system practices and student and program progress with students, families, and the community. Educators and institutions communicate, in ordinary language, the purposes, methods, and results of assessment. They focus reporting on what students know and are able to do, what they need to learn to do, and what will be done to facilitate improvement. They report achievement data in terms of agreed-upon learning goals. Translations are provided as needed. Examples of assessments and student work are made available to parents and the community so they know what high quality performance and local students' work looks like. Assessment results are reported together with contextual information such as education programs, social data, resource availability, and other student outcomes.

Principle 7: Assessment Systems Are Regularly Reviewed and Improved

Assessment systems are regularly reviewed and improved to ensure that the systems are educationally beneficial to all students. Assessment systems must evolve and improve. Even well-designed systems must adapt to changing conditions and increased knowledge. Reviews are the basis for making decisions to alter all or part of the assessment system. Reviewers include stakeholders in the education system and independent expert analysts. A cost-benefit analysis of the system focuses on the effects of assessment on learning. These Principles, including "Foundations," provide the basis for evaluating the system.

The Ant and Modern work culture

THE ANT

Every day, a small ant arrives at work very early and starts work immediately.

She produces a lot and she was happy.

The Chief, a lion, was surprised to see that the ant was working without supervision.

He thought if the ant can produce so much without supervision, wouldn’t she produce even more if she had a supervisor, So he recruited a cockroach

who had extensive experience as supervisor and who was famous for writing excellent reports.

The cockroach’s first decision was to set up a clocking in attendance system.

He also needed a secretary to help him write and type his reports and …

... he recruited a spider, who managed the archives and monitored all phone calls.

The lion was delighted with the cockroach's reports and asked him to produce graphs to describe production rates and to analyze trends, so that he could use them for presentations at Board‘s meetings.

So the cockroach had to buy a new computer and a laser printer and

... recruited a fly to manage the IT department.

The ant, who had once been so productive and relaxed, hated this new plethora of paperwork and meetings which used up most of her time…!

The lion came to the conclusion that it was high time to nominate a person in charge of the department where the ant worked.

The position was given to the cicada, whose first decision was to buy a carpet and an ergonomic chair for his office.

The new person in charge, the cicada, also needed a computer and a personal assistant, who he brought from his previous department, to help him prepare a Work and Budget Control Strategic Optimization Plan…

The Department where the ant works is now a sad place, where nobody laughs anymore and everybody has become upset...

It was at that time that the cicada convinced the boss, he lion, of the absolute necessity to start a climatic study of the environment .

Having reviewed the charges for running the ant’s department , the lion found out that the production was much less than before.

So he recruited the owl, a prestigious and renowned consultant to carry out an audit and suggest solutions.

The owl spent three months in the department and came up with an enormous report , in several volumes,

that concluded :

“The department is overstaffed ...”

Guess who the lion fires first?

The ant , of course, because she

“showed lack of motivation and had a negative attitude".

NB: The characters in this fable are fictitious; any resemblance to real people or facts within the Corporation is pure coincidence…

Having a bad teacher in first year can harm kids' entire academic life

London, April 26 (ANI): Having a bad teacher in the reception year can harm a child's entire education, according to a new study.
Researchers at Durham University found that the effect of having an exceptionally poor - or an unusually good - teacher in the first year at primary school was still detectable six years later.
The findings suggest that many pupils are being betrayed by schools that, in an effort to rise up national league tables, concentrate their best teachers on pupils about to take their Sats tests at the age of 11.
"More effort needs to be spent on the most valuable years which are the earliest years," Times Online quoted study's lead author Peter Tymms, professor of education at Durham University, as saying.
For the study, the researchers analysed the progress in learning vocabulary, reading and mathematics of more than 73,000 primary school pupils who were tested at the beginning of their schooling in 1999 and then annually until 2005.
Kids who were in classes in the bottom 16 percent of progress in the reception year performed, on average, around a fifth of a level worse in their Sats test than those whose class progress was average.
On the other hand, those whose classes progressed most in reception year performed about a fifth of a level better.
According to researchers, the effect of good and bad teaching is cumulative, so if a child is unlucky enough to have a poor teacher every year of their primary school career, this would make a difference of an entire level in their test performance.
"The residual effect lasts as long as we can measure it," said Tymms.
The study is published in the journal Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability. (ANI)

LETTER FROM ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO HIS SON’S TEACHER

Dear Teacher

“My son starts school today. It is all going to be strange and new to him for a while and I wish you would treat him gently. It is an adventure that might take him across continents. All adventures that probably include wars, tragedy and sorrow. To live this life, he will require faith, love and courage.

So dear Teacher, will you please take him by his hand and teach him things he will have to know, teaching him - but gently, if you can. Teach him that for every enemy, there is a friend. He will have to know that all men are not just, that all men are not true. But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero that for every crooked politician, there is a dedicated leader.

Teach him if you can that 10 cents earned is of far more value than a dollar found. In school, teacher, it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat. Teach him to learn how to gracefully lose, and enjoy winning when he does win.

Teach him to be gentle with people, tough with tough people. Steer him away from envy if you can and teach him the secret of quiet laughter. Teach him if you can - how to laugh when he is sad, teach him there is no shame in tears. Teach him there can be glory in failure and despair in success. Teach him to scoff at cynics.

Teach him if you can the wonders of books, but also give time to ponder the extreme mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hill. Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if every one tell him they are wrong.

Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone else is doing it. Teach him to listen to every one, but teach him also to filters all that he hears on a screen of truth and take only the good that comes through.

Teach him to sell his talents and brains to the highest bidder but never to put a price tag on his heart and soul. Let him have the courage to be impatient, let him have the patient to be brave. Teach him to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will always have sublime faith in mankind, in God.

This is a tall order, I know teacher, but see what best you can do. He is such a nice little boy and he is my son.

"QUITTERS NEVER WIN AND WINNERS NEVER QUIT."

Probably the greatest example of persistence is Abraham Lincoln. If you want to learn about somebody who didn't quit, look no further.

Born into poverty, Lincoln was faced with defeat throughout his life. He lost 8 elections, twice failed in business and suffered a nervous breakdown.

He could have quit many times - but he didn't and because he didn't quit, he became one of the greatest Presidents in the history of US.

Lincoln was a champion and he never gave up. Here is a sketch of Lincoln's road to the White House :

1816 : His family was forced out of their home. He had to work to support them.
1818 : His mother died.
1831 : Failed in business.
1832 : Ran for state legislature - Lost.
1832 : Also lost his job. Wanted to go to law school, but couldn't get in.
1833 : Borrowed some money from a friend to begin business, but became bankrupt by the year end.
1834 : Ran for state legislature again - Won.
1835 : Was engaged to be married, but his fiancée died.
1836 : Had a total nervous breakdown and was in bed for 6 months.
1838 : Sought to become speaker of the state legislature - Defeated.
1840 : Sought to be elector - Defeated.
1843 : Ran for Congress - Lost.
1846 : Ran for Congress again. This time he won. Went to Washington and did a good job.
1848 : Ran for re-election to Congress - Lost.
1849 : Sought the job of land officer in his home state - Rejected.
1854 : Ran for the Senate of the US - Lost.
1856 : Sought the Vice-Presidential nomination at his party's national convention - Got less than 100 votes.
1858 : Ran for the US Senate again - Lost again.
1860 : Elected President of the US.

Lincoln's persistence echoed,
"Quitters Never Win and Winners Never Quit."

A Teacher's Lessons for Business Leaders - by Carmine Gallo

Ron Clark is known as "America's Educator," but his formula for motivating students applies beyond the classroom. One of the most inspiring leaders I've met in the last several years does not run a Fortune 500 company, did not launch a startup in his garage, and has not led an army.

He's a school teacher. But his persuasion skills are so effective they should be adopted by anyone who manages anyone.

Ron Clark taught elementary school in North Carolina. After watching a program about a New York City school that had a hard time attracting qualified teachers, he decided to head to New York with the goal of teaching in one of its toughest schools. Clark eventually landed a job doing just that in Harlem.

He asked if he could teach a class of fifth-graders who had been performing at a second-grade level. The school's administrators wanted to give him the gifted class, but Clark insisted on the underperforming students. In one school year, Clark's fifth-grade class out performed the gifted class. Clark became Disney's teacher of the year, a best-selling author, an Oprah guest, and the subject of a made-for-TV movie, The Ron Clark Story, starring Matthew Perry.

When I was writing my last book, Fire Them Up! I caught up with Clark to discuss how managers can use his techniques to motivate their teams. Here are some of the things he said:

Raise expectations.

Students and employees will improve their game in response to a challenge. When Clark walked in to his Harlem class, he announced what seemed to be an

absurd goal:

The class would test at grade level by the end of the school year. Once the students learned Clark was serious, they responded and began to act like the successful students he had known they could be. One month later, after Clark had seen the results, he began to express a vision nobody had dared to dream—they would outperform the gifted class by the end of the year.

As a leader, your job is to think one step ahead of the rest of your team and then equip it with the tools and confidence to get there.

Explain why before how.

"It's not enough to set a goal," Clark told me. "You need to tell your students why it's important to reach that goal. For my students, it meant a better future. I told them why they needed to know a certain subject, how it would be an advantage to them in their lives."

When it comes to inspiring your employees, the "why" is also often more important than the "how." Why should they exceed quarterly sales goals? Why should they improve customer service scores? Show your team how accomplishing these goals will improve their lives as well as the lives of those around them.

Encourage celebration and praise.

In Clark's book, The Essential 55 - his rules for success in the classroom—rule No. 3 is applicable in almost any business setting: If someone in the class wins a game or does something well, we will congratulate that person. Clark believes that anyone student or employee will do a better job when he receives praise. But he went one step further in his class. He encouraged the students to celebrate each other's achievements as if they were a supportive family.

He writes: "If you want a team to be successful, you have to create an atmosphere where everyone on the team is proud of each other.If you set a goal and everyone is working toward that goal as an individual and not as a team, it can be intimidating. But if you feel like you have the support of an entire team then you can set the goal as high as you want because there is no fear associated with it. Every person on that team will want to contribute to achieving that goal because they are doing it together."

Show genuine interest beyond business.

Clark cultivated a sense of curiosity and respect in his Harlem classroom, requiring students to respond to a question with a question (his rule No. 6). "You are far more likable and respectful when you are asking about the thoughts and opinions of others,"

Clark writes. Showing a genuine interest is a consistent theme among inspiring communicators. Motivating is about bringing out the best in people, but people will not listen to your message until they know you care. Show you care about them personally and you will bring out their best professionally.

Be positive and enjoy life.

Clark's can-do spirit is infectious. His words reflect his optimism, and he refuses to let any of his students speak the language of defeat. Rule No. 50 is simply: Be positive and enjoy life. Clark told me a leader must set the tone, especially with the words he chooses to use. It is up to the leader to set high expectations, to praise people, to believe in them, and to do whatever it takes to help people meet their goals and have fun in the process.

Despite the challenges Clark faced as a teacher, he remained optimistic and steadfast in his belief that his rules would unlock the students' potential. His passion and positive energy allowed him to see opportunity where everyone else saw obstacles.

Clark's rules are intended to draw out the best in students. They can also help bring out the best in any team. And by inspiring your colleagues and employees in the workplace, you become the kind of person people want to be around.

Carmine Gallo is a Pleasanton, Calif. communications coach and author of the book, Fire Them Up! (John Wiley & Sons; October, 2007)