Dear Parents,
The following message has already been shared with teachers and students and now, at the beginning of Semester 2, I would like to share some decisions I have taken recently regarding assessment which will improve how we support learning at H-IS.
We know that we learn by practicing, but also that practice is a necessary but not sufficient ingredient in supporting progress. We ALSO need to be deliberate about the WAY we practice. Sometimes we need an expert to give us feedback so that we know what, specifically, to improve, but no matter how good that feedback is, we typically need multiple attempts to try and implement it successfully.
A lot of research points to the fact that students who are required to recall information more regularly – students who practice complex skills in a deliberate AND regular way – will retain more and progress faster than students who are assessed less frequently.
For this reason, I have asked teachers of all subjects in the school to check students’ understanding at least once every 2 weeks. When students spend hours working in groups, listening to teachers, or researching, the teacher needs to check to see what the student has learned. Formal assessments do this more accurately than informal check-ins (for example: “Did you understand everything today?”).
Our students have the right not just to experience engaging lessons, but also to have clear benchmarks so that they understand how they are progressing in each subject. Assessments every 2 weeks in all their subjects will all be summatives because a summative assessment is one where they provide evidence of your learning achievements. Some of these summatives will be minor (a 10 question quiz) and some will take more time (for example a 90 minute essay response). A summative assessment is NOT a major assessment, it is a check on what has been learned.
MYP and DP grades should always be a holistic judgment based on grade descriptors and best fit achievement across evidence from all criteria so please don’t worry about the weighting of these assessments. It is in all our interests to find evidence to give our students the credit for the highest levels of performance they are able to reliably and regularly achieve.
Thank you for reading and for understanding that we are united in our goal to be both more productive and more joyful in our learning.
All the best,
Conan de Wilde
P.S.: If you want to read what the IB says about formative and summative assessment, please read on. We will still be carrying out formative assessments every day and responding through informal feedback, peer and self assessment. Summative assessment, linked to the IB criteria and delivered with the expert knowledge of a teacher will typically happen every 2 weeks or more frequently when that is desirable.
“Through effective formative assessment, teachers gather, analyse, interpret and use a variety of evidence to improve student learning and to help students to achieve their potential. Student peer and self-assessment can be important elements of formative assessment plans.
Internal (school-based) summative assessment is part of every MYP unit. Summative assessments are designed to provide evidence for evaluating student achievement using required MYP subject-group- specific assessment criteria.” (MYP from Principles Into Practice 2022)