Rosa Parks Elementary School
PYP Assessment Policy

IB Standards:

Culture 5.1: The school implements and reviews an assessment policy that makes the school's philosophy clear and is aligned with the IB philosophy concerning learning and assessment. (0301-05-0100)

Culture 5.2: The school identifies in its assessment policy all necessary local and IB requirements, and outlines how the school is adhering to these requirements. (0301-05-0200)

Culture 5.3: The school describes in its assessment policy the rights and responsibilities of all members of the school community and clearly states what constitutes good assessment practice. (0301-05-0300)

Culture 5.5: The school describes in its assessment policy the value of assessment for continuous learning and growth. (0301-05-0500)

Philosophy

At Rosa Parks Elementary, we believe assessment is an integral part of all teaching and learning. Assessment is the gathering and analysis of information about student performance and is designed to inform practice. Assessment identifies what students know, understand, can do, and feel at different stages in the learning process. Rosa Parks Elementary School is committed to ensuring that the assessment policy is implemented by all staff members. Parents are informed about the policy through parent conferences, team newsletters, the school website, and student-led conferences.

Purpose of Assessment

The purpose of assessment at Rosa Parks Elementary is to provide information on student learning, to improve student learning outcomes, and to contribute to the efficacy of learning programs. Assessment is the ongoing process of gathering evidence for and of learning. This evidence is used to give recognition and timely feedback to learners and all other stake holders. Assessment at Rosa Parks Elementary reflects best practice that supports the learner and the teacher in the promotion of student achievement. Our approach to assessment recognizes the importance of assessing the process of inquiry as well as the products of inquiry. Students and teachers are actively engaged in assessing the students' progress as part of the development of their wider critical thinking and self-assessment skills.

Types of Assessments

The assessment of the students' development and learning is an essential component of the curriculum and helps to inform continued development, learning and teaching. Students are observed in a variety of situations and a wide range of assessment strategies are implemented. At Rosa Parks Elementary the classroom employs a range of formative and summative assessments, which demonstrate student achievements as follows:

Pre-Assessment: Pre-Assesments occur before embarking on new learning and are a way of establishing students’ prior knowledge and experiences.

Formative assessment: Formative Assessments are woven into the daily learning process and gives regular feedback throughout the Unit of Inquiry. It provides teachers and students with information about how their learning is developing. The information is used to plan the next stage in learning by providing data on what the students already know and can do. This process helps learners to improve knowledge, deepen understanding, foster self-motivation, increase enthusiasm for learning, engage in thoughtful reflection, develop the capacity for self-assessment, and recognize the criteria for success.

Formative assessment aims to promote learning by giving regular and frequent feedback throughout the learning process. This process helps learners to improve knowledge and understanding, to foster self-motivation and enthusiasm for learning, to engage in thoughtful reflection, to develop the capacity for self-assessment, and to recognize the criteria for success.

Summative Assessment: Summative assessment is the culmination of the teaching and learning process. Summative assessments give the students opportunities to demonstrate what has been learned and a clear insight into students' understanding. Summative assessments lead to improvement in student learning and the teaching process, as well as measure understanding of the central idea, and prompts students towards action.Assessment in the classroom includes:

• collecting evidence of students' understanding and thinking
• documenting learning processes of groups and individuals
• engaging students in reflecting on their learning
• students assessing work produced by themselves and by others
• developing clear rubrics
• identifying exemplary student work
• keeping records of test/task results

  Gathering Data:

  The Rosa Parks Elementary community uses a range of methods and approaches to gather information about a student's learning. This information is recorded using a variety of tools. Assessment Strategies include:

• Observations: Students are observed with a focus on whole class, small groups, and one on one student or activity.
• Performance assessments: The assessment of goal-directed tasks with established criteria. They provide authentic and significant challenges and problems. In these tasks, there are numerous approaches to the problem and rarely only one correct response.
• Process-focused assessments: Students are observed, noting the typical as well as non-typical behaviors, collecting multiple observations to enhance reliability, and synthesizing evidence from different contexts to increase validity. Checklists, inventories and narrative descriptions (such as learning logs) are common methods of collecting observations.
• Selected Responses: One-dimensional exercises such as tests and quizzes.
• Open-ended Tasks: Situations in which students are presented with a stimulus and asked to communicate an original response. The answer might be a brief written answer, a drawing, a diagram or a solution.

  Assessment tools include:

• Rubrics: Established sets of criteria used for scoring student tests, portfolios, or performances. The rubric descriptors tell the student and teacher what to look for in a successful effort.
• Anecdotal Records:  Brief written notes based on observation
• Checklists: Lists of information, data, attributes, or elements that should be present
• Continuums: Visual representation of developmental stages of learning that shows a progression of achievement or identity
• End of Unit Assessments: Assessments are given at the end of each unit.
• Digital Portfolios: Teacher and students collect and compile records of conversations, comments, explanations, and hypotheses and regularly annotate student work for the student portfolios.

  Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, teachers are required to administer State assessments, as follows:

• Grade 3: Virginia Standards of Learning in Language Arts, Mathematics
• Grade 4: Virginia Standards of Learning in Language Arts, Mathematics, and Virginia Studies
• Grade 5: Virginia Standards of Learning in Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science

  Assessment Communication

  Assessment Communication at Rosa Parks Elementary includes communicating what students know, understand, can do as well as areas that will need improvement. Honest and comprehensive communication involves parents, students and teachers as partners. Communication on assessments takes place throughout the year including:

  Back to School Night
  Parents gain information about the school from the classroom teachers regarding the curriculum and classroom routines via this important evening that is held at the beginning of the school year.

  Parent Surveys
  The teachers gain information in regard to their students through a parent survey.

  Conferences
  Conferences are held in November and may occur more frequently as needed. These conference days are built into the school schedule and occur at the end of the first nine weeks and at the end of the second nine weeks, as needed. Conferences can be requested by teacher or parent at any time. November conferences are student-led.

  Digital Portfolios
  The portfolio is an important part of the school's reporting program. It provides a record of student effort and achievement each year students are at Rosa Parks Elementary School. All students have their own digital portfolio, which is shared with parents during student-led conferences.

  Report Cards

  Assessment information is reported at the completion of each nine weeks. The nine-week report card is completed for each of the following curriculum areas:

• Language Arts
• Mathematics
• Science
• Social Studies
• Visual Arts
• World Language
• Music
• Physical Education

  A teacher summary in comment form includes references to the IB Learner Profile Attributes as well the Approaches to Learning (Communication Skills, Thinking Skills, Social Skills, Research Skills, and Self-Management Skills).

  The Exhibition

  Students in the final year of the PYP carry out an extended, collaborative inquiry - the PYP Exhibition. At Rosa Parks Elementary this takes place towards the end of the school year. One of the purposes of the PYP Exhibition is to provide a forum for student driven reporting. Other key purposes include the following:

  • For students to engage and report on an in-depth, collaborative inquiry
  • To provide students with an opportunity to demonstrate independence and responsibility for their learning
  • To provide students with an opportunity to explore multiple perspectives of their topics
  • For students to synthesize and apply their learning of previous years, and to reflect on their journey through the PYP
  • To provide an authentic process of assessing student understanding
  • To demonstrate how students can take action as a result of their learning
  • To unite the students, teachers, parents and other members of the school community in a collaborative experience that incorporates the essential elements of the PYP
  • To celebrate the transition of learners from PYP to MYP education

Reporting at Rosa Parks Elementary

The following table gives parents a guide to Reporting at Rosa Parks Elementary over the period of the school year.

*Selected Students (all grades): IEP Progress Reports, WIDA (Access Test) Reports, and Gifted Education Progress Reports

Access to Policy and Complaint Procedures

Our IB policies are accessible to the school community on the Rosa Parks Elementary School Website under the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program tab on the site. Our website makes this documentation available in multiple languages. Printed copies will be made available by request in numerous languages.

Appendix A

Rosa Parks Elementary Assessment Essential Agreements

Parent/Teacher Communication

Rosa Parks Elementary School is responsible for informing parents about the PYP and their program of inquiry units for the year using the following forms of communication:

• Parent Information Nights at the beginning of the year
• Class Newsletters and emails
• The School website
• Class Canvas Courses
• Student Digital Portfolios
• Parent-Teacher Conferences
• Student-Led Conferences

  Assessment

• Assessment and Learning Objectives should be planned at the start of the unit and should demonstrate clear links between the assessment tasks and all components of the Unit of Inquiry, i.e. central idea and lines of inquiry, key concepts, teacher and student questions, learning activities.
• Assessment strategies and tools should be varied and can include pre- and post-assessment tasks and formative and summative assessments.
• Assessments should include peer and self-assessment where appropriate.
• Students should be involved in the development of some of the assessment activities and tools (i.e. rubrics). When students are not involved in the development of assessment activities, they need to be informed of assessment criteria.
• Assessment will inform and direct future learning.
• Teachers will be familiar with and implement the assessment policy of the school.

  Reporting

• Learning objectives are planned at the start of the unit and should demonstrate clear links between the assessment tasks and all components of the planner, i.e. central idea and lines of inquiry, key concepts, teacher and student questions and learning engagements.
• Teacher comments are written to inform and direct future learning.
• Teacher comments address learner profile and PYP attitudes.

   Conferences

  Preparation

• Have evidence/work samples to share with parents - portfolios and additional work samples.
• In your teams collaboratively discuss information that will be shared and how action will be recorded.
• Teacher conferences with student prior to student-led conference

  During the Conference

• Always begin and end with a positive comment about the child.
• Ask how parents and students are feeling about how the child is progressing.
• Give parents a strategy to take away to deal with a specific issue or problem (if there is an issue).
• Refer parents to webpages for resources/ strategies/ communication.
• Take notes on schoolwide conference reflection sheet.

  Follow-up

• Record information/action for follow up during the conference.
• Reiterate with parents at the end of the conference those actions that you will be following up on and the action the parent will now need to take.
• If a conference is going to take longer than the allocated time, offer to meet again to continue the conference at another time in the near future.

  Digital Portfolios

• Portfolios documents the learning that has taken place throughout the year.
• Each student has their own portfolio which is shared digitally with students.
• Students can share their portfolio work samples at student- led conferences

Revised: May 2023