How do I use the Reporting Space?

Find out more about the customization options and use cases for Reporting Spaces

Alasdair McMillan avatar
Written by Alasdair McMillan
Updated over a week ago

Now that you have started adding content to your Reporting Space, how can you use this content effectively?

The Reporting Space is a highly flexible optional add-on for SpacesEDU Pro. Our goal is to help support individual teachers' diverse methods of documenting learning, assessing mastery, and communicating with families. The Reporting Space allows:

Selecting Posts

The Reporting Space is an ideal companion to Proficiency Scales. Over the course of the year or a term, students will accumulate many posts with different curriculum tags and proficiency levels, however, we may only want to consider select posts and tags for final assessment.

  • By assigning specific posts to your Reporting Space, you can view the average proficiency level for each student at a glance, organized by curriculum outcome on the right-hand side of your screen.

  • The Reporting Space allow teachers to streamline cumulative assessment across all spaces in their class. The Reporting Space can not only make final assessment easier, but provide invaluable context for families beyond a report card comment and final mark.

Ultimately, the Reporting Space could be used to replace a traditional report card altogether, if that is your goal!

Pinning Posts

By default, posts in the Reporting Space appear in chronological order, with the most recent at the top.

  • Once you've selected posts in your Reporting Space, you have the option to pin up to 3 items. You can use this feature to highlight your students' best work, their biggest areas of growth, or whatever you'd like to emphasize!

  • To pin a post, simply click the pin icon at the top right of a post in the Reporting Space, and select whether you'd like to pin it 1st, 2nd, or 3rd.

To unpin a post, or change its position after it's been pinned, simply click the same button again.

Summary Statements and Areas of Learning

Within your Reporting Space, you can create one or more Summary Statements for each student that provides a custom overview of their learning journey. Simply click ‘Edit Summary’ and apply a Summary Statement or Areas of Learning.

  • Along with the text of the Summary Statement, you can upload up to 10 media attachments (files, photos, recordings, etc.).

    • Once attachments have been uploaded, you can also change the order in which they display with the Move buttons below each attachment.

  • The statement and any linked attachments will be showcased at the top of the Reporting Space once it has been made visible to students and/or family members.

  • To create an additional Summary Statement, click Add Summary Statement after creating your first one for a student. This option allows teachers to add separate summary statements for multiple reporting periods.

    • When downloading or printing the Reporting Space information, teachers can also select the specific Areas of Learning and Summary Statements they wish to include.

In addition to the overall Summary, you have the option to add customizable Areas of Learning.

  1. Click the Gear icon near the top right, then Manage Areas of Learning (or click Settings when viewing the Summary & Areas of Learning for any student)

  2. Click Add Area of Learning

  3. Click the pencil button to edit the name (max 60 characters)

  4. Click the checkmark to save

  5. Repeat for any additional areas of learning you'd like to add (max 12)

  6. Click Save and Apply

Once you've added your Areas of Learning, they'll be visible for each student in the Reporting Space.

  • You can delete an area of learning from the same settings panel - note that this will also delete any comments you've added for those areas.

  • Summary Statements and Areas of Learning will automatically be visible to any students and linked family members that can view the Reporting Space.

  • Note that any changes you make to add or remove Areas of Learning will apply for all students in that Reporting Space, even if you access the settings from a student's summary.

Individualized Assessment with the Reporting Space

After adding the Areas of Learning, teachers can fill in the following details for each student:

  1. One or more Summary Statements, describing the student's progress during that reporting period

  2. Up to 10 Media attachments: these are linked to the Reporting Space for that student, separately from any posts that you add to the space

  3. A Summary for each Area of Learning: this could be used to comment on a student's achievements in a particular subject area, for example, or for a specific unit if the Class is for a one-subject course.

  4. A Proficiency Level for each Area of Learning

These assessments complement the evidence of each student's learning that you select and add to their Reporting Space, to provide a far richer portrait of their growth than a traditional paper report card.

Printing and Downloading

Once you've added Summary Statements and Areas of Learning for your students, you can also download a PDF version:

  1. Click the Download button near the top right of your Reporting Space

  2. Select the student(s) you'd like to download, or All Students

    1. Students with a blank summary statement will be flagged with a red exclamation mark on this screen

  3. Select the Areas of Learning and/or Summary Statements you wish to include in the download

    1. By default, all are selected, but you can uncheck any that you do not want to include in the file

  4. Click Download

This will download a printable PDF version of each selected student's summary statement, areas of learning, and the comments entered for each area. You can also save a PDF for an individual student by clicking the smaller download button at the top right of each student's reporting space feed (next to the Edit Report button).

Logos & Reference Images

  • Districts and independent schools can also brand their Reporting Space PDFs and printouts with both a logo and a reference image (for example, a visual depiction of the proficiency scale you're using).

    • We can only apply one custom logo & reference image across all schools within a district, and one logo & image at a time for independent schools not associated with a district.

    • Recommended dimensions are 200x100 px for the logo and 1000x400 px for the Reference Image. We can assist with resizing your image files as needed.

If you are a lead with a school or district licensing the Reporting Space, and you'd like to add or update your logo or reference image, please reach out to your SpacesEDU implementation contact or start a chat with us in the corner of your screen.

Reporting Space Visibility

If this feature is available to your school, each class you create will automatically include a Reporting Space.

By default, the Reporting Space is hidden from students and families. To adjust the visibility settings:

  • Open the Spaces tab from your Teacher account

  • Click the Students or Family button to the right of 'View Reporting Space' (if you have already opened the Reporting Space, it will appear in the top right of your screen)

  • There are two options when configuring visibility for students and families:

    1. Make the space Visible, allowing students to view posts in the Reporting Space, including comments. Note that by default, students will not be able to add new comments to the post.

    2. Once the space is Visible, you can toggle the ability for students or family members to add new comments to posts within the Reporting Space.

What are some different ways I can use the Reporting Space?

We've kept things as flexible as possible, so it's up to you to decide what works best for your class! The customizable visibility settings of the Reporting space allows for a range of uses. Depending on your approach to assessment, you may choose to:

  • Keep the Reporting Space hidden from students and families, and use the feature to support preparing your own assessments. This may include adding private comments visible to teachers and co-teachers only

  • Allow visibility for students and linked family members, while keeping comments disabled. You may use the posts within the space to facilitate discussion at a parent-teacher interview or student-led conference

  • Allow visibility and commenting for both students and family members to foster an ongoing dialogue around a curated selection of each student's best work

  • Use it as a space for discussion and feedback visible only to families, and not students

  • You may also change visibility settings at any time, adding content and feedback throughout the year, opening comments to students at a later date to comment and reflect upon their own progress.

  • SpacesEDU currently has one Reporting Space per class. If using SpacesEDU for formal reporting for semesters or trimesters, teachers can now:

    • Download and save their Reporting Space Summary as a PDF and then update the summary statements and Areas of Learning for the next reporting period.

    • SpacesEDU recommends that teachers add their PDF as a media file to the Summary Statement for easy reference.

    • Alternatively, teachers can label their Summary Statement and Areas of Learning with semester/trimester delineators (i.e. Semester 1: Science, Semester 2: Science, etc.) to maintain earlier comments within their Reporting Space over the course of the year.

What's next?

  • We are hard at work on exciting future updates to continue to support authentic assessment.

  • To learn more about what's coming soon, take a look at our product roadmap.

  • We welcome your feedback! Submit a feature suggestion through our roadmap page, or by starting a chat in the bottom-left corner of your screen.

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