Compass Professional Learning Q&A

• Why are both ES and teachers listed on Compass rolls?

All staff have been categorised on Compass as teachers for ease of timetabling.

• Whose responsibility is it to mark rolls?

It is the legal responsibility of the classroom teacher to mark their role. This means that if you’re a teacher and you have a roll next to your name, it is your responsibility to mark it. In classes where there are two teachers, it is both people’s responsibility to ensure it is marked – it only needs to be marked once. 

• What about ES marking rolls?

It is not the responsibility of ES to mark a roll, teachers are the ones with duty of care and they must mark the roll. In the event of emergency or if something else prevents the teacher marking their roll, they may request the ES to do it, but this should not be common.

• How does Event marking work?

Events are the superseding rolls on Compass, these must be marked. The event marking will override other rolls. 

• Creating Events

Anyone can create an event, for excursions or camps. Follow the waffle icon and go down to events. Create the template that best suits your needs and follow the prompts. 

Please note that all excursions and camps require approval by a list of staff (you can see who these staff are on the bottom right side of the dashboard). Because of this, allow 2 weeks for regular excursions and 6 weeks for overnight, camps or high-risk activities as these require school counsel approval. 

It is possible that events will be declined without the proper approval time. 

• Students in sick bay

We are investigating the best way to have this noted on Compass for the long term, however, if you have a student who is not in your class, and is in sick bay, they are NP for your class. Office staff will add sick bay notes.

• Friday Rec rolls?

As Friday Rec involves students moving to areas of interest and these are likely to change, Friday Rec rolls will need to be marked by the homegroup teacher before students move to their next session.

• Paper consent forms for events

Since moving across the Compass, we are encouraging families to use the Compass app to sign consent forms and pay online. However, there will always be families who are reticent, or unable to do so. You can still print off paper consent forms.
We will also accept email/text consent if needed

Please note that only parents/guardians can sign consent forms, students cannot sign their own. 

• Late consent

It can be frustrating when parents/carers don’t sign consent early, but we will not be excluding students from attending regular excursions for this. If a student/parent brings consent late, this can still be accepted, we are able to change consent manually on Compass. 

If you’re unsure about this, speak with a Principal class member, who will make a final decision.

• Chasing up consent and payments

It is the responsibility of the event organiser to chase up any late or missing consent/payments. You can follow-up with families in a range of different ways, email, phone call, text and Compass push notifications. We recommend getting events up early so you have additional time for this task. 

If parents are confused about how to use Compass and signing for events, we can email them some helpful instructions or they can call and speak to the front office. 

• Payment options

We can set up payment plans for expensive events - like camp. Parents can also opt to use CSEF funding if they have it.