Classrooms change from year to year, depending on the individual strengths and challenges each student brings to the class. For far too long, teachers have been required to administer a number of standardized assessments to the entire class regardless of whether the results would provide useful information for more than a few students. As acknowledged by the Ministry of Education’s policy guideline entitled Growing Success, “Teachers’ professional judgements are at the heart of effective assessment, evaluation, and reporting of student achievement.”
With greater recognition for our professional judgement, we are now better able to determine which assessments correspond to your child’s learning needs. We now have more discretion to decide which students would benefit from a particular assessment. This leaves more time for focusing on regular classroom learning and for individualized programming for your child.