As we continue our journey of student focused assessment practices at Burnett, we can see clear evidence of the benefits of this journey in our report cards. With the 2022-2023 school year now complete, it is a good time to check in on these benefits to student learning and growth.

At the heart of our assessment practices are beliefs that:

• learning and growth is ongoing
• students evualutions should reflect their growth and improvement over ttime, rather than the averaging of earlier and later tasks
• timely descriptive feedback on student learning is required for creating opportunities for growth
• the majority of student work is assessed for feedback only so that students are best prepared to demonstrate their understanding at the end of unit, term, semster or course % of student marks

Changing our practice 

Changing practice is hard, especially when it is related to something as deeply ingrained in our education system as letter grades. Through thoughtful discussion and reflection over the past year as a school staff, we have made significant strides in shifting our thinking, both for teachers and students. As evidence of this, use of the modern Proficiency Scale language increased 17% on Semester 2 report card marks given to our grade 8 and 9 students from Semester 1. Our students regularly tell us that they appreciate the feedback they receive based on the proficiency scale and find that it helps them understand how to set goals, improve, and reach higher levels of achievement in all areas!

The Ministry of Education Proficiency Scale is an effective tool to help students understand where they are in their learning and what their next steps might be. During the 2022-2023 school year, we had 1200 marks on report cards  in grades 8 and 9 that used the Proficiency Scale.  The follow table illustrates the break down of these proficiency scale assessments for grade 8 and 9 students.