ISA Assessment Policy

Philosophy of Assessment:

At ISA we believe that the assessment process directly informs planning, teaching, and learning and that its effectiveness depends upon how we place students at the centre of their learning by enabling teachers to monitor their progress and adjust instructions for further improvement. We believe that learning outcomes, which encompass knowledge and understanding of a subject as well as cognitive, personal and academic skills, should be explicitly stated for each unit of work and these should be the cornerstone around which the whole course is developed.

Aim of Assessment:

The chief objective of assessment in the MYP is to:

• allow students to show their understanding, knowledge and skills in subject areas, Global Context etc.
• manage the assessment process through an active partnership among teachers, students and parents.
• provide feedback to students in order to enhance learning
• develop their capacity to learn by giving them opportunities to review their learning.
• set further goals
• enable teachers to improve their instruction based upon the feedback
• inform the parents about the students’ progress
• To strengthen the positive personal approach
• Priority of skills and life purposes above knowledge
• To promote the ability to apply knowledge and skills in every day life
• Formation of the motivation in knowledge and skills acquisition
• Diagnostic of education defining the level of a personal achievement
• Diagnostic of teachers and their professional skills and development
• Trace the effective the implementation of the program

Background information

The assessment at school is a core of the educational process and the school staff pays great attention to the assessment tasks and rubrics and appropriateness to the age and level. The policy constantly reviews according to the new information and data from the IB office and Kazakhstani Ministry of education. The International School of Almaty worked out the assessment policy for teachers, students and the work of the school on whole that meets the requirements of the school mission and is adequate to the content of the education and curriculum. 

The learner’s profile plays an active role in the process of assessment. The educational process is designed to impart the profile’s characteristics to every student so they can apply their knowledge and skills in their future life. They have an opportunity to become long-life learners and be active global citizens.

Assessment task

Assessment task is thoughtfully prepared and the main idea is to see the visual result of the student and the teachers’ success. 

To make an assessment task always keep in mind:

• The aim, the content, expected result
• What we want our students to know, be able to do and apply in practice)
• The tool of assessment
• Deadline
• Differentiated tasks
• Challenging activities

Assessment in the ISA is an integral part of teaching and learning. It is ongoing and is standard based, comparing a student's achievement to expected results, using qualitative and quantitative data, which are used for formative and summative purposes.

Forms of Assessment

1. Formative assessment

The school considers it as an important process for teachers to identify each student’s need, on an ongoing basis, throughout the year. The teachers can review their methods of instruction so as to make improvement in overall performance of students. It may take various forms such as quiz, class tests, both formal and informal discussion, cross word puzzles etc.

1. B) Summative assessment

It is an important assessment as it helps in deciding the criterion levels achieved for a given summative task. It happens in general at the end of each unit.

This assessment is criterion based, as each task is assessed against a set of given criteria. We use the MYP prescribed criteria levels in the final year of MYP.

The performance of a student is assessed against each criterion at least twice in a term. This ensures that a teacher has enough information for his/her final judgment.

The school keeps doing its internal standardization.

Diary for Success and Handbook for MYP student

The students of MYP are encouraged to complete the Diaries for success where they can reflect on the achievements and have a written feedback with the teachers. The diary is a document where they can present self assessment and define the aims for future. The students have the handbooks where they can reflect on their achievement, relevant global context and their goals for future. The goals can be subject orientated and personal. The handbook has got some successful subject tips, individual page of the personal development and pages for notes.

MYP Assessment Criteria

The school applies the published MYP criteria. The coordinator is responsible for communication any changes in the criteria on the subject to teachers and students. The subjects groups use the unchanged published MYP criteria to access the students in grade 9 and 10. All assessment is criteria-referenced, which means that students are assessed against subject specific achievement goals (criteria). There are four criteria in each subject, and each criterion is assessed out of 8. The levels within the criteria are differentiated by the IB for MYP year 1 (grade 6), MYP year 3 (grade 8) and MYP year 5 (grade 10). At ISA, we use the year 1 criteria for grade 6, the year 3 criteria for grades 7 and 8 and the year 5 criteria for grades 9 and 10. Teaching and learning at ISA is developed in a way that allows students to develop the skills needed to meet each of the four learning objectives in that particular subject. Each objective is linked to a particular assessment criterion. Assessment tasks are designed in such a way that allow the student to demonstrate, and teachers to judge, a level of achievement against each criterion. The teacher will use descriptor for each criterion being assessed using best fits approach to assess student’s work. For each criterion, a decision is made on the most appropriate descriptor and the corresponding level of achievement is awarded. Where it is not clearly evident which overall level descriptor should be awarded, teachers must use their judgment to select the level descriptor that best matches the student’s work overall. The “best-fit” approach allows teachers to select the achievement level that best describes the piece of work being assessed. It is important to remember that a student does not have to achieve against all of the individual descriptor strands in a band to be awarded an overall level in that band. If the work is a strong example of achievement in a band, the teacher should give it the higher achievement level in the band. If the work is a weak example of achievement in that band, the teacher should give it the lower achievement level in the band.

 Below there is a table of general grade descriptors for any subject. The grade indicated reflects the final achievement grade.

MYP Attainment: Level 1-7 descriptors

Integration of MYP assessment criteria with Kazakhstani National Assessment

ISA has been successfully using MYP criteria for the Kazakhstani system. The grade boundaries in KS ranges from 1 to 5.It was easy to reconcile this to MYP grades, according to the following scheme:

The SLT trains and monitors the teachers about the procedure of integration. The HOD and the teachers explain the integrated criteria to students and the parents.

Self-assessment

The cornerstone of ISA’s education policy is child-centered education and to ensure that teachers provide students with opportunities to do self-evaluation or self-assessment.

This develops in them the ability to reflect, making them independent thinkers.

Reporting system

The reporting system in ISA is an important process. The report card is a sincere reflection of MYP values such as IB Learner Profile.  The report is a tool of analysis of the best practices that happen at the lesson, in subject group and at school. The report gives an opportunity to update the curriculum and enrich it.  It has the following steps:

• Subject teachers make the reports of the evaluation - at the end of each term (4 times a year)
• Subject teachers present their reports to the head of the department each term. The head of the department makes the report based on the subject teachers’ report s at the end of each term (4 times a year)
• The subject committees have meetings twice a year where they present the results of the two terms and make a big semester report (twice a year)
• The subject committees present their reports to the Senior Management team twice a year (at the end of each semester).
• The Senior Management Team makes a final report at the end of the year and presents it to the Foundation Education department.

The parents are a part of the educational process. The school presents the reports to the parents about their children’s achievements. The diaries for success are completed twice a year at the end of each semester. The academic reports are sent every term. The parents are able to see the academic results and the progress of their development in the students’ diaries for success.  At the end of the year the teachers prepare final progress report. The diary for success is held in school and is accessible to parents at the parents’ meetings and on their demand.  On the school websites the parents are able to see the results of their children. Every semester, according to the total criteria, a student is awarded the certificates of achievement.  For example, if a student reaches level 7, he is awarded a nomination of a “Super Star”.

Class Journal, Electronic Magazine and Student’s Portfolio

The class Journal is an important “official state document” which is used by teachers to record the results of formative assessment as well as summative assessments. The document is maintained by homeroom teachers. Thus the journal is reflective of students’ achievement. The electronic magazine, maintained on the local area network, is an important tool to record MYP criteria- based results twice a year, at the end of each semester.

Each student maintains a Portfolio, helped by their homeroom teacher, as a record of all the work done in class in that particular subject. They also deposit in it their summative and formative assessment works.

Internal Standardization

At ISA, we adhere to Internal Standardization to ensure:

• That teacher always applies the same standardized criteria, ensuring consistency over time.
• That teacher Utilizes exemplars to reference criteria judgments. These exemplars would be used within the practice phase of the moderation process.
• That teachers and students appreciate the principles of assessment for learning.
• That teachers make consistent, reliable and valid decisions across different points in time.

Internal standardization is aimed at improving assessment through:

• Precision of systemic and individual teacher decision making.
• Enhancement of reliability, validity and fairness within the process, so that achievement decisions can be defended.
• Availability of more reliable and valid information when comparing cohort data with historical information.

The Procedure

• Choose a leader to oversee the standardization process. The leader could also be responsible for gathering samples of student work and guiding the group through discussions;
• Begin the standardization process by providing opportunity for all teachers to share their understandings, expectations and interpretations of criteria and how the criteria have been clarified for the task.
• Teachers are expected to reflect on the quality of the task and whether students were able to access all criteria level descriptors. Through these discussions, biases and prejudices can be brought forth and discussed, and shared expectations to be developed about how to arrive at final grades;
• It has been suggested that teachers can make judgments collaboratively about a sample of student work.
• Collate samples for the standardization process and provide copies to other teachers;
• Final meeting to discuss their judgments of a sampling of students’ achievement based on the evidence they have;
• Through discussion and clarification, come to an ‘agreed’ judgment of  student’s achievement in relation to criteria. It is to be noted that this may not always be achieved, but the real objective is to reach a higher level of consensus.