Message From The Academic Team

The First Quarter

We are well into our first term and students will soon be receiving their progress reports. In anticipation of this we would like to shed some insight into understanding the report cards and specifically the progress report cards.

A key idea surrounding education is the gathering and using of evidence for learning. Simply stated this means that we look at what the students have done (their work) to tell us what they have learned. This looking at student work is known as assessment.

There are different types of assessment over the course of a term: a quiz, a quick survey, a quick write, a multi-paragraph essay, a chapter test or a unit test, etc. All of these types of assessment will fall into four broad categories, diagnostic assessments, external assessments, formative assessments, and summative assessments. This article will focus on the formative and summative assessments, thus allow me to introduce a definition for these two types of assessment.

Formative Assessment:

This assessment is intended to promote further improvement of student learning. It is a measurement that is used to inform the teaching and learning process. The student and the teacher both gain information and can collaboratively improve future learning. The main goal of formative assessment is to gain as much information as possible in respect of what the student has achieved, what has not been achieved and what is required to best facilitate further learning progress.

Summative Assessment:

This assessment is intended to summarize student achievement at a particular time although summative data can provide feedback to student and teachers and school leadership to lead to further improvement. The summative assessments generally are used to report to parents and students and serves also as an accountability measure for educational providers (the school). In addition, they supply data towards awards: for example, meeting specific criteria on the IGCSE or IBDP examinations garners a student Cambridge certificate awards or the IB Diploma. The summative assessment is the final measure of what the student has learned.

As you look at the progress report, please keep in mind that the marks on the progress report are formative in nature. These marks inform you how your student is doing thus far, we are still in the middle of the school semester, so these marks inform where the learning needs to be enhanced and improved and supported. If you would consider a student as a plant, the daily care and watering of a plant to ensure it grows well is the formative assessment. This is different from the summative assessment where we would be taking measurement of the plant height or stalks or petals. The first impacts growth the second records growth.

Think of the student as a plant...

Formative assessment is like feeding and watering the plants appropriate to the needs – this of course directly affects the growth and development of the plan.

Summative assessment is like measuring the plant, how tall is it, how many stalks, how many leaves etc. It is interesting and important to compare and analyze the measurements, but, this does not affect the development or growth of the plant.

Last week we shared the key idea of assessment as the gathering and using of evidence for learning. In essence, teachers look at what the students have done (their work) to tell them what the students have learned. This week we will consider the additional aspect that is assessed known as the Learning Skills.

The Learning Skills are postures of mind and behavior that cannot be “taught” per say but rather are encouraged and practiced and developed to hopefully become an intrinsic discipline of our students. This is done with each activity and task where students are provided guidelines or tips on the steps required to complete activities or tasks. You will see on the report card five designated Learning Skills: Self-management, communication, research, thinking and social. These five elements are assessed separately, though in application they could be summarized as a student's attitude towards their learning. These 5 skills answer the question, Is the student able to organize their materials and thoughts and movements to locate and access the questions and answers and express their learning appropriately and correctly to their peers and teachers?

These skills are foundational for any learning to take place at all and so many would argue are most important. These skills are a main feature of all learning that takes place in our youngest learners and we hope to see increased ease in its use as the students' progress through learning that is more complex and challenging. A student who is not able to self-manage would not be able to be ready to learn and unable to prepare to share their learning. We ask that you give special attention to the marks on the Learning Skills as well as to the subject areas: these attitudes or postures or disciplines matter.

Mrs. Carol Souisa | Academic Principal