This school year, families of students in Kindergarten to Grade 6 will notice some changes to how we share information about student learning. Below is what's changing and why, including two report card dates and two parent-teacher interview weeks to mark on your calendar.
The Divisional Elementary Report Card shares your child's progress and achievement based on Alberta curriculum learner outcomes. It also celebrates student success and encourages growth throughout the school year. It is built on three guiding principles:
- Fostering continuous student growth: Teachers can provide ongoing opportunities to demonstrate their learning throughout the year.
- Strengths-based reporting and language: Teachers will summarize the students' level of understanding of learner outcomes, focusing on what they can achieve.
- Triangulation of evidence: Teachers look at multiple forms of evidence, including observations, conversations and student work, and use their professional judgment to describe levels of understanding.
What's changing
In past years, elementary report cards went home three times a year. This year, there will be two formal reporting periods, on January 22 and June 28.
Along with the change in reporting periods, there will be an adjustment in when Parent-Teacher Interviews will be held this year. For the current school year, in-person interviews will take place during the weeks of November 2 to 5 and February 22 to 25. Your child's school will share details about booking a time.
Perhaps most importantly, elementary report cards will now use a new proficiency scale defined by levels of achievement, not numeric scores or grades, to describe how well a student understands specific learner outcomes as identified within the Alberta curriculum. This refined system of reporting uses a five-point scale with more strength-based language. Under our previous four-point system, where students received a 1-4 to represent their academic abilities, a 3 covered a wide range of achievement. This sometimes left families surprised when results in junior high looked different from what they had seen in elementary. The new scale is designed to give a clearer picture to both parents and students earlier in their academic journey.
As noted in the chart above, Proficient (shown as PR on a report card) is the goal for all students.
For our students in Grades 4 to 6, there are two additional levels that will be used. Together, the five levels run from Emerging (EM) at the beginning of the scale to Extending (EX) at the top.
