Report Cards

It's that time of year, report cards! Here at Sotogrande International School the students will not be taking home a letter grade A through F, because there are NO GRADES in primary. Instead of a letter grade to indicate where the student falls in terms of meeting the expectations for the class, the student has a checklist showing what skills and knowledge they have and what they are still working on. They also have a small paragraph written by the teacher about that students' work habits, behavior and ability in class. We've been watching as the teacher work on these comments and noticed that they make a Herculean effort to say something positive about the student even if in extreme cases is is merely, “comes to class on time” or “is well-liked by peers”. We helped to do the maths report. For this we selected what level the students were at for a variety of objectives- “applied”, “understood”, “in progress” or “with support”. They also have some assessments that are conducted outside the classroom. For example they have a reading test to find their reading level. This test is standardized and conducted by a teaching aid.

The advantage of this sort of system is that more attention is payed to the individual student and their performance based on their potential. It reduced the comparison to peers and lets the students ability speak for itself. It also puts less pressure on the students and gives the teachers more flexibility- they are not bound to give a specific grade based on scores. In fact, most things we collect are not assigned points or recorded in a grade book. Instead comments come together to create an overall picture of a students ability and knowledge.

The disadvantage of this system is that it is very subjective. As Ashley and I realized as we prepared parts of the reports, it is hard to unattached your personal impressions about the student from their performance. It is also less standardized and hard to find how the student falls within the class and even harder to compare in different classes.
-Alyssa