Philosophy

Assessment is the gathering and analysis of information about student performance and is designed to inform practice. It identifies what students know, understand, can do and feel at different stages in the learning process. Students and teachers should be actively engaged in assessing the student’s progress as part of the development of their wider critical-thinking and self-assessment skills.

IB PYP Making The PYP Happen, 2007

At Bess Streeter Aldrich we believe assessment:

• Is vital to guiding instruction, teaching and learning
• Is on-going, purposeful and effective
• Involves teachers, students, peers and parents
• Is both formative and summative
• Uses a variety of strategies and tools
• Makes learning expectations and assessment strategies clear to students
• Provides regular opportunities for students to reflect on their own learning
• Shows students’ progress over time
• Will be used for evaluation of the programme

Bess Streeter Aldrich is committed to the IB PYP standards and practices and ensuring that the assessment policy is implemented, understood and supported by all staff members. Parents will be informed about the policy through parent meetings, the school newsletter and at student/parent/teacher conferences.

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Why do we assess?

The prime objective of assessing students’ learning and performance is to give feedback to:

• students—to encourage the start of lifelong learning
• teachers—to support their reflection on what to teach and how to teach it
• parents—to highlight their child’s learning and development.

IBO Website, 2007

What are the guiding principles of assessment?

Effective assessments allow students to:

• share their learning and understanding of others
• demonstrate a range of knowledge, conceptual understanding and skills
• use a variety of learning styles, multiple intelligences and abilities to express their understanding
• know and understand in advance the criteria for producing a quality product or performance
• participate in reflection, self- and peer-assessment
• base their learning on real-life experiences that can lead to further inquiries
• express different points of view and interpretations
• analyze their learning and understand what needs to be improved.

Effective assessments allow the teacher to:

• inform every stage of the teaching and learning process
• plan in response to student and teacher inquiries
• develop criteria for producing a quality product or performance
• produce evidence that can be reported and understood by the whole school community
• collaboratively review and reflect on student performance and progress
• take into account a variety of learning styles, multiple intelligences and abilities including different cultural context
• use scoring that is both analytical and holistic.

Effective assessments allow parents to:

• see evidence of student learning and development
• develop an understanding of the student’s progress
• provide opportunities to support and celebrate student learning.

IB PYP Making The PYP Happen, 2007

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Teachers and students are both actively involved in assessing student progress throughout the learning process. Students will self-assess their own work and reflect on their learning. Teachers will support students in assessing their own work by providing assessment criteria and by modeling the assessment process.

Assessment is viewed as an integral part of the teaching-learning process. It involves collecting evidence of learning over a period of time, using a variety of assessment methods. The goals of assessment are to provide feedback on both the on-going progress and the end-product in achieving the standards. The following are principles underlying classroom assessment:

Pre-Assessment

• Teachers will assess students’ prior knowledge and experience before embarking on new learning experiences in an appropriate way.

• Formative assessment is interwoven with the daily teaching and helps teachers and children find out what the children already know in order to plan the next stage of learning. Formative assessment and teaching are directly linked; neither can function effectively or purposefully without the other.

Summative Assessment

• Summative assessment takes place at the end of the teaching and learning processes and gives the children opportunities to demonstrate what has been learned. Summative assessments may include any of, and any combination of, the following: acquisition of data, synthesis of information, application of knowledge and processes.

The Fifth Grade Exhibition

• Students who are in their final year of the programme are expected to carry out an extended, collaborative inquiry project, known as the exhibition, under the guidance of their teachers. The fifth grade Exhibition requires that each student demonstrate the five essential elements of the Primary Years Programme: knowledge, concepts, skills, attitudes and action. It is an opportunity for students to exhibit the attributes of the learner profile that they have been developing throughout the Primary Years Programme.

• Throughout the learning process opportunities are provided for students to consider their progress in relation to the attributes listed in the IB Learner Profile in the context of student learning.

Practice
(Assessment strategies for recording and reporting)

• Observations-All students are observed regularly, with the teachers taking notes on the individual, the group, and the whole class. Observations include how groups work and the roles of participants within the group.
• Performance Assessments-Performance Assessment is a measure of assessment based on authentic tasks such as activities, exercises, or problems that require students to show what they can do. Performance tasks often have more than one acceptable solution.
• Process-Focused Assessment-The students’ transdisciplinary skills are observed and recorded. This may include checklists, inventories and narrative descriptions.
• Open-ended tasks-These are situations in which children are asked to communicate an original response. The answer might be a brief written answer, a drawing, a diagram or a solution.
• Tests/Quizzes-These assessments provide a snapshot of students’ subject specific knowledge.

Recording Assessment Data
The tools used in the above assessment strategies include:

• Checklists-These are lists of information, data, attributes or elements that should be present.
• Exemplars-Samples of students’ work that serve as concrete standards against which other samples are judged.
• Rubrics-An established set of criteria for rating students in all areas. The descriptors tell the assessor what characteristics or signs to look for in students’ work and then how to rate that work on a predetermined scale.
• Anecdotal records- Brief written notes based on observations of students.
• Continuums-These are visual representations of developmental stages of learning. They show a progression of achievement or identify where a student is in a process.

How will we report information about assessment?
Effective reporting should:

• involve parents, students and teachers as partners
• reflect what the school community values
• be comprehensive, honest, fair and credible
• be clear and understandable to all parties
• allow teachers to incorporate what they learn during the reporting process into their future teaching and assessment practice.

IB PYP Making the PYP Happen 2007

The Written Report

1. IB PYP units of inquiry progress reports (after each unit of inquiry) address the following areas:

• learner profile
• transdisciplinary themes
• the essential elements of the Primary Years Programme
• student self reflection
  

2. Teachers complete the Millard Public Schools district mandated report card four times per year. The report card includes grades for all curricular area.
3. Mandatory Requirements-all staff are required to administer all mandated district, state and national assessments (see attached sheet)
4. Friday Folders are sent home on a weekly basis and contain current assessments.
5. District and state mandated assessments are reported to parents on an on-going basis.

IB PYP Making the PYP Happen 2007

• Is continuous and ongoing, providing both formative (i.e., ongoing) and summative (i.e., culminating) opportunities for monitoring students' progress toward achieving essential learner outcomes.
• Is multidimensional (i.e., reflecting a wide variety of artifacts and processes and various aspects of students' learning process(es).
• Provides ways for students to give thoughtful consideration to their own learning and development.
• Clearly reflects stated learner outcomes identified in the core curriculum that students are expected to study.
• Focuses upon students' performance-based learning experiences as well as their acquisition of key concepts, knowledge, skills, attitudes and actions.
• Contains works that represent a variety of different assessment tools.

Every child will develop a portfolio that will travel with them while at Bess Streeter Aldrich.

Grade level teams will provide the PYP coordinator with copies of all Unit of Inquiry assessments. Documents may be sent via hard copy or e-mail. The PYP coordinator will keep all assessments in a designated binder for each grade level.

Student portfolios will be available to any student, teacher, staff member, authorized school visitor or parent.  Formative assessments kept aside from the student portfolio, will only be accessible to the student, teacher, parent and any staff member that works with that student and the administration.

As a staff, we will review our assessment agreements and policy annually at the end of the school year.