At the end of a casual relief teaching shift, we are to write feedback to the replaced classroom teacher. This form is valuable information for the classroom teacher to know about absent students, work complete/incomplete, behavioural issues, or any positive general notes regarding the day! By completing this valuable feedback, you are making the replaced teacher feel as though they haven’t missed anything, any issues that need to be addressed and they will know where to pick up from for the next day.
At Free Agency, we provide our staff with a feedback form to use. It is a good idea to have these printed in a plastic folder ready to go when you are going to schools to either fill out throughout or at the end of your day.
We thought we would provide some tips when writing feedback notes as we sometimes forget certain aspects of notetaking.
1. Write the number of students for the day.
Writing the number of students for the day is good for the classroom teacher to know how many students attended. It is also a good reminder for yourself as you will know how many students are in the classroom for either photocopying work, grouping or if another staff member asks.
2. Noting which students were absent.
This information is valuable to the classroom teacher as it provides them with an understanding of which students didn’t get the set learning for the day and where they need to go forth with the student/s learning the next day. Sometimes we forget to do this when completing the roll. A good idea is to have a sticky note when completing the roll and noting their names down to write in the feedback form.
3. Notes or Forms given to you by students
Any important notes or forms from parents received by students will need to be where they are placed for the teacher to read or is notified what was sent to the office that day. This is important as classroom teacher may have a checklist if it is excursion forms and needs to know who has returned the form.
4. Mention the Super Stars in the classroom!
Super stars are the students who are willing to go above and beyond while their classroom teacher is away.By mentioning these super stars of the classroom, it gives the classroom teacher a positive note of who supported the CRT for the day and who is the reliable person to ask for anything.
5 . Behavioural Issues
Unfortunately, behavioural issues must be mentioned especially if they have been critical incidents. Do mention these situations in the feedback form for the main teacher to know. However, also fill in this to the nearby teacher in the same year level as it could be an incident risk report if it needs to know to higher up staff members.
6. Mention anything positive on the listed behavioural students.
In the start of a teachers outline for the day, the teacher may mention some students to keep an eye on due to behavioural problems or needing extra support in their learning. It is always good to mention accomplishments these students have done in the day taught them. We sometimes only mention the negative if it is a behavioural problem.
7. Don’t forget to write that you had a great day!
Sometimes we forget to write about our own day and focus more on the students learning. Teacher’s love hearing positive notes about your experience in their class as they can reflect this back to the class the next day in the morning.
Where to place this feedback?
This feedback form should be either left on the teacher's desk neatly with the lesson outline for the day. If you notice the class has had multiple relief teachers and you do not want your note to be lost, you can also place this in their pigeon hole.
We hope our tips have been useful for feedback notes when going out. Just remember the classroom teachers will appreciate this being completed.