Student-Led Conferences

By Tim Campbell, Middle School Director

At McGillis, we strive to empower our students as leaders in their learning. To achieve this, we have to be intentional about fostering student agency, developing their meta-cognitive skills, and building self-advocacy skills. Students must also be prompted to reflect upon their learning while setting attainable goals for the future.

In the spring of 2022, we implemented student-led conferences in 4th through 8th Grade to provide an opportunity to support these goals, with student success being a top priority. Regardless of the student’s age, the positive outcomes were abundant:

• Students marked and celebrated their own learning.
• Families gained new understandings of their child’s perspective and experiences.
• Students took accountability for their learning progress, with supportive adults supporting their capabilities.
• Families, faculty, and students solidified a partnership rooted in each child’s unique learning journey.

We look forward to the next iteration of student-led conferences in 2023!