Licensed by the Ontario Ministry of Education

Assessment and Evaluation

The policy aims to maintain high standards, improve student learning, and benefit students, parents, and teachers in the Educators Academy. Successful implementation of this policy depends on the professional judgement of educators at all levels, as well as on their ability to work together and to build trust and confidence among parents and students.

The Educators Academy's theory of assessment and evaluation follows the Ministry of Education's Growing Success document, and we follow it because it is beneficial to the students. Our teachers design assessment in such a way as to make it possible to gather and show evidence of learning in a variety of ways to gradually release responsibility to the students, and to give multiple and varied opportunities to reflect on learning and receive detailed feedback.

Growing Success articulates the vision the Ministry has for the purpose and structure of assessment and evaluation techniques. There are seven fundamental principles that ensure best practices and procedures of assessment and evaluation by The Educators Academy teachers. The Educators Academy's assessments and evaluations are,

• are fair, transparent, and equitable for all students;
• support all students, including those with special education needs, those who are learning the language of instruction (English or French), and those who are First Nation, Métis, or Inuit;
• are carefully planned to relate to the curriculum expectations and learning goals and, as much as possible, to the interests, learning styles and preferences, needs, and experiences of all students;
• are communicated clearly to students and parents at the beginning of the school year or course and at other appropriate points throughout the school year or course;
• are ongoing, varied in nature, and administered over a period of time to provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate the full range of their learning;
• provide ongoing descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement;
• develop students' self-assessment skills to enable them to assess their own learning, set specific goals, and plan next steps for their learning.

Assessment for Learning and as Learning

Assessment is the process of gathering information that accurately reflects how well a student is achieving the curriculum expectations in a course. The primary purpose of assessment is to improve student learning. Assessment for the purpose of improving student learning is seen as both "assessment for learning" and "assessment as learning". As part of assessment for learning, The Educators Academy's teachers provide students with descriptive feedback and coaching for improvement. Our teachers engage in assessment as learning by helping all students develop their capacity to be independent, autonomous learners who are able to set individual goals, monitor their own progress, determine next steps, and reflect on their thinking and learning. The Educators Academy's assessments and evaluations are,

• are fair, transparent, and equitable for all students;
• support all students, including those with special education needs, those who are learning the language of instruction (English or French)
• are carefully planned to relate to the curriculum expectations and learning goals and, as much as possible, to the interests, learning styles and preferences, needs, and experiences of all students;
• are communicated clearly to students and parents at the beginning of the course and at other points throughout the school year or course;
• are ongoing, varied in nature, and administered over a period of time to provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate the full range of their learning;
• provide ongoing descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement;
• develop students' self-assessment skills to enable them to assess their own learning, set specific goals, and plan next steps for their learning.

Evaluation refers to the process of judging the quality of student learning on the basis of established performance standards and assigning a value to represent that quality. At The Educators Academy, student's achievement of the overall expectations is evaluated on the basis of his or her achievement of related specific expectations. The overall expectations are broad in nature, and the specific expectations define the particular content or scope of the knowledge and skills referred to in the overall expectations. Educators Academy uses their professional judgement to determine which specific expectations should be used to evaluate achievement of the overall expectations, and which ones will be accounted for in instruction and assessment but not necessarily evaluated.

Assessment Strands:

The Educators Academy will ensure that student work is assessed and/or evaluated in a balanced manner with respect to the four categories, and that achievement of particular expectations is considered within the appropriate categories.

Knowledge and Understanding (K/U)

Thinking and Inquiry (T/I)

Communication (C)

Application (A)

Teaching & Learning Strategies

An understanding of students' strengths and needs, as well as of their backgrounds and life experiences, can help the Educators Academy teachers plan effective instruction and assessment. The Educators Academy teachers continually build their awareness of students' learning strengths and needs by observing and assessing their readiness to learn, their interests, and their learning styles and preferences. As teachers develop and deepen their understanding of individual students, they can respond more effectively to the students' needs by differentiating instructional approaches – adjusting the method or pace of instruction, using different types of resources, allowing a wider choice of topics, even adjusting the learning environment, if appropriate, to suit the way their students learn and how they are best able to demonstrate their learning. Unless students have an Individual Education Plan with modified curriculum expectations, what they learn continues to be guided by the curriculum expectations and remains the same for all students

Evaluation and Reporting of Students' Achievements by Report Cards

Student achievement is communicated formally to students and parents by means of the Provincial Report Card. The report card provides a record of the student's achievement of the curriculum expectations in every course, at particular points in the school year or semester, in the form of a percentage grade. Report cards are issued upon completion of the course. Each report card will focus on related aspects of student achievement. The percentage grade will represent the quality of the student's overall achievement of the expectations for the course and will reflect the corresponding level of achievement. The Educators Academy will record a final grade for every course, and a credit is granted for the course in which the student's grade is 50% or higher.

• Seventy per cent of the grade will be based on evaluations conducted throughout the course. This portion of the grade should reflect the student's most consistent level of achievement throughout the course, although special consideration should be given to more recent evidence of achievement.
• Thirty per cent of the grade will be based on a final evaluation in the form of an examination, performance, essay, and/or other method of evaluation suitable to the course content and administered towards the end of the course.

Term work will account 70% of the course work

Final Exam would be a value of 30%

Final Assessment and Evaluation = 100%

The teacher will also provide written comments concerning the student's strengths, areas for improvement, and next steps (E–Excellent, G–Good, S–Satisfactory, 

N–Needs Improvement). The report card will indicate whether an OSSD credit has been earned or not. Upon completion of a course, The Educators Academy will send a copy of the report card back to the student's home school where the course will be added to the ongoing list of courses on the student's Ontario Student Transcript. The report card will also be sent to the student's home address for parents' communication.