Assessment
St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Academy uses assessment procedures that support a quality program. The underlying philosophy is to create procedures for assessing students that are fair and remain predictable and stable over a period of time. We believe that parents and students need to be made aware of how students are being assessed at school, how they are performing at school, and how they can improve their performance at school. It is deemed to be in the best interest of students that such procedures be as uniform as possible within each grade, division, and the entire school. Day- to- day assessment is meant to go hand in hand with the student evaluation policy and the student promotion policies of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Academy.
The following procedures outline how assessments look in our school:
1. Our teachers use of outcomes- based assessment methods in all courses.
2. Teacher grade books are available to parents any time using our PowerSchool website.
3. Courses shall be evaluated according to the Program of Studies and grade books should reflect this. (Ie. Marks by general outcomes as opposed to assignment type).
4. Students are assessed and given feedback on assessments regularly.
5. Assessment techniques are varied and every effort shall be made to develop assessments that gauge the true abilities of students within the classroom. Assessment techniques to be employed include, but are not limited to: portfolios, norm- referenced tests, criterion referenced tests, performance assessment, and checklists. Also, within each form of assessment teachers shall employ a variety of assessments such as essay, short answer, constructed response items, selected response items, dramatizations, both oral and visual presentations, and other relevant assessment tools.
6. Rubrics, scoring guides, answer keys, and other specific means of determining scores on assessments shall be created by teachers and kept on file for each assessment.
7. Course overviews are created by the end of the first month of school in every subject and contain assessment/evaluation breakdowns. These are to be sent home to make parents/students aware of such expectations.
8. For each core subject, an overall percentage grade shall be issued for senior high students. Junior high students shall be issued a level of achievement.
9. Non- academic objectives shall be reported to parents as well as progress concerning academic objectives.
10. Only objectives identified in the curriculum shall be counted towards a student’s grade.(Attendance, class participation, behavior, attitudes, social characteristics, etc shall not make up a student’s grade unless stated as a prescribed outcome in the Program of Studies).
11. Students will have two weeks to complete missing assignment from the determined due date. After two weeks the assignment will be marked as zero and any work submitted after this time will not be accepted for marks.
12. All capable students in grades 7- 12 shall write final exams in at least the four core subjects. These exams are to be comprehensive and cover material from the entire course. In Junior High School they shall count for a minimum of 25% of the year’s mark and in Senior High School they shall count for a minimum of 30% of the year’s mark. Please note that core grade 12 courses have provincial assessments (diplomas) that are worth 30% of their final mark.
13. When a teacher is missing a significant number of key assessments from a student and they do not feel confident that they have enough assessments to give an accurate grade to a student, the teacher shall indicate such on the report card by giving an “INS” as a grade and making a comment of such in the comment area. No grade shall be assigned until more assessment data on the student can be gathered. If, at the end of the year, the situation has not been remedied, the final grade shall be based on the key summative assessments assigned by the teacher to the class. The comment that the final grade reflects all key assignments in the course and that the student’s mark reflects a lack of completion of these assessments shall be made.
Junior/Senior High Final Exams:
Junior/Senior high students are expected to write all of their exams as scheduled. There is a final exam for each core subject. Students who miss a final exam will receive 0% for that exam, unless extenuating circumstances prevail.
Grade 12 students writing Diploma exams must adhere to Department of Education regulations. Exam schedules will be posted a minimum of 2 weeks before exams are scheduled to be written.
Provincial Achievement Exams:
Students in grade 9 write Provincial Achievement Tests. In grade 9, students write Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies exams. Timetables for the exams are set by the Department of Education on an annual basis. Should parents want their children exempted from writing these exams, they must inform school Administration, in writing, no later than March 15th.
