Curriculum, learning and teaching
Tracking student performance Westernstyle in a Chinese bilingual school Will Percy explains how a data management system is helping to raise standards As a bilingual school in China, all of our students and parents, and many of our teachers and administrators, come from a culture where league tables dominate student performance and where children are ranked according to academic ability. Here at HD Ningbo School in Zhejiang province, China, we are taking a different approach; focusing on every individual student’s learning progress. Our school information management software, which includes bilingual programmes for both staff and parents, is supporting us in this approach. We recently introduced a centralised, online information management system for data recording, tracking and reporting to give us clarity and transparency on student performance. Prior to that, the school was using spreadsheets to monitor student performance, and mail-merge with the spreadsheets to produce student reports. Access to student data was limited and multiple access was all but impossible. We are still in early implementation stages and have faced challenges along the way, but already we can see that we are achieving what we set out to achieve: a data management system that helps everyone within the school community to support each and every student with their learning progress. Preparing for a new school management system was a learning journey for our school. It prompted us to open up discussion amongst the staff. This didn’t just focus on the
Autumn
Spring |
| 2017
tracking of student performance. We also had important conversations about what we could do, and what data we needed, to help improve each individual student with their learning progress, regardless of where they are ranked in the class. We discussed how we want students to think about their learning, how to grade them, how to move students on to the next level, and discussed our standards too. This involved the entire faculty and led to significant discussions about how to grade for our two different systems (British and Chinese), how to recognise the differences between these two systems, how to balance comments and grades, and when to use assessment; not simply to track and report, but also as a spring-board to keep moving students forward. The results of these discussions required a real shift in focus, particularly for our locally trained colleagues; a shift from a focus on ranking to a perception that, if everyone in the class performs at their highest standard, then everyone is succeeding. This shift in how we use performance data is helping to transform the culture of our school. Using data to support change We’re really proud of being a bilingual school. We talk a lot about taking the best from both East and West. In my opinion, the tracking of student data is one of the best aspects of the West; not tracking for punishment and reward but, rather,
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