How do you keep your academic records?

[Michelle My Bell]

I am looking to see if there are any good record keeping systems that you all have developed. I am graduating my oldest this year and I wish I had kept better records because it was quite a task to write her transcripts her senior year of high school. I also feel that I should have planned better back in 7th or 8th grade to know what courses I wanted her to accomplish which years as a framework. I would allow it to be flexible but it is easier to have a plan and modify it rather than have no plan and realize you should have done xyz already and now you are behind. So how do you all accomplish this? I have 4 more children to get it right with. Do you purchase something like this:

 

http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/025264/261ee3ea4c1b74ff3795951b

 

or do you create your own forms? I would love to see some examples!

[klmama]

My transcript is a modified version of one someone here shared. If you search for transcript on the high school board, you may find some you like.

 

[Michelle My Bell]

I am not looking for transcripts actually, I am looking for ways to organize the high school years materials, activities, etc... to help create transcripts. I am also looking for general planning ideas for all grade levels and even long term planning. I have my own methods, but was wondering if anyone had any new ideas for me.

[regentrude]

Each semester, I write a curriculum outline where I list planned courses and main resources for each course.At the end of each semester, I type up a two page document summarizing the semester. I list

• courses and hours spent
  
• grade earned and method of evaluation
  
• summary of topics covered/TOC of textbook
  
• Any books read, materials used, TC lectures, documentaries
  
• Longer writing assignments, labs, presentations.
  

At the end of the year, I use these to write extended course descriptions, about a page per course. I will condense these for the actual college application, but this way I have all the information about the course collected in one place.

 

I do not have any current ones on this computer, but to give you an idea, I am attaching a semester log from a few years ago (that was 7th grade, but gives you an idea).

 

ETA: For high school, I have a rough "four year plan". I plan for one credit in each of the core subjects per year and try to distribute electives throughout.

semester summary example.doc

[Mandy in TN]

When my oldest was in 7th grade, we discussed the things that he liked to do. We did a college search based on his likes. We discussed rural vs urban, small vs large campus, etc. and narrowed it some more. We looked at what the state colleges (his safety schools) would require and what the private schools on the giant list typically required. This helped him understand what he needed to accomplish in extras as well as in test scores and coursework.

 

As he went through high school, completing courses and maturing, his list kept getting shorter.

 

By the fall of his 10th grade year, it was pretty manageable. I think it was down to about 12. He knew he wanted a rural school and I knew he needed a school with small class size. We wanted something within 500 miles of our home. There were a handful of majors that they needed to offer, because he had not decided. So, we only had to keep an eye on the 11 private schools, because number twelve was non-specified state college and we knew that one wasn't an issue.

 

He started taking the ACT and that elimated some of the reach schools. All this time, we kept what he had completed in an excel spreadsheet, but I also registered with an umbrella school so they kept copies of completed coursework. His junior year we visited colleges and narrowed it down to a particular state college, a reach school, another private college he really liked, and a couple more just in case. His junior year he took dual enrollment classes so that they would be on his transcript that was sent to colleges he applied to in the fall of his senior year.

 

His reach school had rolling admission with the first deadline in October. He got everything sent and went for his interview. He was going to apply to other schools before their early admissions cut offs, but he received an acceptance letter from his reach school before then. :D After this, we really didn't bother with tracking anything except for finishing the coursework transcript.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[bobbeym]

Each semester, I write a curriculum outline where I list planned courses and main resources for each course.At the end of each semester, I type up a two page document summarizing the semester. I list

• courses and hours spent

• grade earned and method of evaluation

• summary of topics covered/TOC of textbook

• Any books read, materials used, TC lectures, documentaries

• Longer writing assignments, labs, presentations.

 

 

 

I love this idea.

 

Grades are kept in an excel workbook, updated as needed. I use spiral bound paper planners for weekly recordkeeping to document:

• annual goals

• 4 year plan

• course descriptions

• field trips

• volunteer activities

• reading log

• syllabi or textbook TOC

• weekly assignment sheets

 

This year's planner is an absolute mess though because of all the changes we've made in curriculum and workload as we've progressed through the year. I'm still debating on whether to clean it up so it reflects actualy work done this year, or to keep it as is because it *does* reflect this year.

[Michelle My Bell]

Excellent! Thanks Regentrude, Mandy and bobbey!

 

These are some excellent suggestions.

[Dmmetler]

I use Homeschool Reporting Online. My cover school switched to a different product, so I put my bare minimum in for them, but I use HSRO to track DD's grades, the curriculum/materials we've used, her contests that she's done, family trips/field trips related to curriculum, and anything else that seems educationally related. I can pick and chose what to actually put on a transcript when she needs one sent somewhere.

[Parrothead]

I use Edu-track

[redsquirrel]

Well, I don't know if this counts, but I use these:

http://www.amazon.com/Roaring-Spring-Teacher-Planner-Assorted/dp/B0006OL4ZA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363889349&sr=8-1&keywords=teacher%27s+daily+plan+book+roaring+spring

 

I use one for each boy. I keep track of all assignments, trips, readings, books read etc.

 

I live in NY and we have to report every quarter. I find this book helps track of everything beautifully. Plus, I can keep them and use them as a guide for my younger boy. It saves me a lot of time and effort.

[nukeswife]

I keep a Word doc with what we've done every day--it's really handy for 4-H as the kids can search for sheep or horses or whatever. I generally bring it up-to-date every day, but some days I get a bit further behind. I also keep an Excel file of what they've read, when started, finished, pages and where we got it. It's really useful for the next kid. I have already written my school profile so just tweak it for the next kid, and I take my course descriptions and rearrange them for the next kid. My transcript is done in Excel. Volunteer hours are tracked in Excel, too. I needed a philosophy of hsing for one of Army girl's school--Westminster maybe? I have a Word file with the info on "how come we can hs?"--also known as my teaching license. We write up a short resume to hand to folks who are writing recommendations--it's been our experience that the recommendation will be more focused and personalized with that info right in front of the writer.

 

eta: I do a transcript for each of my children at least every year (once they hit high school). Once juniors, I add to it every semester. There have been a lot of times that we've needed it for summer things.

 

Margret,

Any chance you'd be willing to share some of your excel templates or a sample of them?