Our school terminology is certainly not easy to understand.
Perhaps you have been in a development talk and heard us say that your child reads fluently,
has a well-developed argument and that we make assessments based on the knowledge requirements.
We who work in the schools are required to explain how we work
and you play an important part in your child's education.
Therefore we want you to understand how we work with assessment and grading.
It's difficult to avoid all the negative reports in the media about today's school.
The media has stated among ather things that our students do not have the same knowledge as students in other countries.
One of the solutions has been to create a new curriculum
which will be clearer for us teachers and will give us better results.
So in 2011 we got a new curriculum and a new grading system.
This explains what we will work with, a little about how we will work with it and what we will evaluate.
Among other things, we have got a list of subject content in every subject we will be working with.
It also includes which skills we want your child to develop.
And we also have knowledge requirements, perhaps you know them better as grading criteria,
which explain what we will be assessing.
Knowledge requirements exist for Grade 3, Grade 6 and Grade 9.
Today we have a goal and knowledge based grading system.
But I believe parents and guardians are recognizing the relative grading system.
And the bell curve- do you remember that? The number of those who received a grade of 5 could be limited. Only seven percent could receive a 5.
In that system a student didn't want to help a classmate because what if that classmate got better results?
Then maybe I wouldn't get a 5.
Because we are compared to the other students.
No, today we have the goal and knowledge based grading system.
That means that we have definite goals and knowledge requirements that we teachers work to reach.
And all the children, regardless of their classmates can reach those goals.
And it is our responsibility to get each student to reach the highest goals possible.
And then we assess the quality of the goals they have reached.
Today we have a new grading scale. Not a new grading system, but a new grading scale.
It was we teachers who wanted this. We wanted more grading levels.
We had G or Satisfactory, VG or Very Good, and MVG or excellent, but we thought that wasn't enough.
So we started to use VG++ and G- to more acurately show where certain students were in the grading levels.
But now we have got a new scale and more letters to use.
From F to A. And the passing grades are E to A.
F is considered a failing grade. And that means that if we assess a students knowledge to be at the F level
then we must consider how we can support that student
so they can reach as far as possible and receive a passing grade.
And if you as parent or guardian have a child in danger of receiving an F
then the school will inform you and discuss what support is being planned
to help your child reach as high a result as possiible.
Some of you parents attempt to translate our new grading letters, especially E to A, to the old 1 to 5
where an E would become a 1. But that's not correct.
That is a completely different grade today. Quite a bit is needed to receive a grade of E.
But if you´re stubborn and insist on translating then an E is more like the old 3.
Here is what the knowledge requirements look like in the curriculm.
These are the knowledge requirements for geography in Grade 6.
Knowledge requirements for the different grading levels are based on these same texts. What is changed is
for example development from basic to excellent knowledge
and from simple to well-developed reasoning.
And this structure is the same even for Grade 9.
If we look at for example E, it says that "The student has the basic knowledge of the interaction between
people, society and nature and demonstrates that by presenting simple and partly developed reasoning
about causes and consequences of population distribution, migration, climate, vegetation" etcetera.
If we look at C: "The student has good knowledge about the interaction between people, society and nature
and demonstrates that through a relatively well-developed
reasoning about the causes and consequences of"
And if we look at A: "The student has very good knowledge about
the interaction between people, society and nature
and demonstrates that through a well-developed and structured reasoning."
So if we go back and look at E again: "The student has a basic knowledge about..."
What is that then? Well, the key is "demonstrates that through simple
and partly developed reasoning about..."
We teachers should get the student to show how they can reason
so that we can assess the quality that they do it.
And that is so we can later decide what grade the student will receive.
But what about now. We were going to have more grading levels.
But we have text only for E, C and A.
Well, the idea is that for these in between levels one must think
to get a D- every goal on the E level should have been reached
and the majority of the C level goals.
Then one receives a D.
If one reaches all the E goals, all the C goals and the majority of the A goals, one receives a B.
These knowledge goals do not only control how we assess a student's knowledge,
they also control our teaching.
If a student is to be able to reason about causes and consequences
then our teaching has to be about that.
We have to discuss different causes and consequences
so that the student can develop their reasoning about them.
And that is how our knowledge requirements are structured.
This was the knowledge requirement for Grade 6 as an example.
And we also have knowledge requirements for Grade 9.
But how does that work? Do we not have knowedge requiremenets for Grade 4 and Grade 5 or Grade 7 and Grade 8?
No, we will use the knowledge requirements in Grade 6 when we make our assessments in Grade 4 and Grade 5.
And we will use the knowledge requirements from Grade 9 when we make our assessments i Grade 7 and Grade 8.
But there is a progression in these texts.
That is to say that when we assess a simple argument in Grade 4
then it is not the same as a simple reasoning in Grade 6.
It is a little simpler.
Because one can only expect reasoning from the teaching
one has had as a 10 year old or as a 14 year old.
But what is a simple reasoning and a well-developed reasoning? How are they different?
We teachers have received a few hints in regards to this. One usually says
that simple reasoning is recognized by a few connections to the content
and shorter reasoning connections.
A leads to B.
And well- developed reasoning-
has several connections to the content and longer reasoning connections.
A leads to B which leads to C and maybe back to A.
That is how we teachers know if reasoning is simply developed or well developed.
The important think is not how much content a student can recite, but what they can do with that content.
In this case, how well one reasons with the content.
Simply or well-developed.
We are working towards developing your child's ability to lead and follow reasoning in mathematics
to communicate in speaking and writing in Swedish and and we are assisted by the knowledge requirements
which we use to assess how well your child is developing.
And then we have the central content which is the basis of our teaching.
Because we believe that a child who can reason, argue,
discuss and analyse will make the content their own
and in that way be familiar with it. Instead of only learning something by heart and reciting it on one occasion.
- a familiarity which we believe can lead to a better result in school.
Then how can you parents and guardians help at home?
preferably by working with how and why questions at home.
Talk to your child about: Why is it so? How does a seed become a tree?
Because then you bring out the reasoning abilities that we can develop at school.
Because this reasoning about how a seed becomes a tree requires not only that a student has learned about photosynthesis by heart
but it demands an understanding of the entire process.
And glossaries- I believe it is customary for parents to test these at home.
But we are not judging how many glossaries a student can recite
but what one does with those words, how one communicates.
Because that is what is important at school today.
We have undeniably a communicative curriculum.
And many parents and guardians wonder what happens to a child who is shy
when one is communicating and discussing all the time?
It is important to remember that are several ways to demonstrate knowledge.
One can reason and discuss in writing. One teacher i met had chosen to chat online with the students
to assess how well they had reasoned in a discussion and how they led the discussion forward.
He had a student who he perceived as being very shy
and when he chatted with the student he learned the student had a lot of knowledge.
And that is a completely natural way for a 12 year old to communicate.
How do we teachers grade really?
It is important that it is my overall assessment of a student's knowledge when I give a grade.
And that I do in relationship to the knowledge requirements.
What does that mean?
If I decide that a student should receive a grade of E
then I know that the student has the basic knowledge of...
and can lead a simple and partly structured argument of...
If something is missing in this list
in spite of the fact that the student got a chance to show this in several different ways but has not reached that goal
then the grade is an F.
If I decide, however, to give a grade of A
then it means that the student has very good knowledge about
and can lead a well structure argument that is well-developed.
But that doesn't mean a student has to show that all the time.
One can practice at school and one can certainly have simpler arguments at times
and still get a final grade of A.
Because that is my overall assessment of what I know about the student that is important today.
And that is how we grade in the schools.
All of the grades up to Grade 9 are called term grades.
That means that we will use the entire grading scale every term -from F to A.
And it is of course possible to receive an A already in the autumn of Grade 6 or in Grade 7 or Grade 8.
But that is not a guarantee that one will receive an A in Grade 9.
Imagine it is the autumn term in Grade 6.
We have worked on the areas in the course plan and those are the parts we will assess a grade.
Let's say that the student has done the work with an A in quality.
What should the student get? An A of course.
Then comes the spring and now we have to work on the other parts of the course plan.
So we work with these in a different way and the student gets to try.
And yet for different reasons the student produces work of E quality.
What will the grade then be for Grade 6? Some parts reach A and some reach E.
If some of the parts reach only E, one can never receive a C. Instead that will be a D.
What kind of school lowers my child's result from an A to a D?
Students usually say, "Why is it that my worst performance pulls down my overall grade?"
But the principal is this- to reach an A must all the goals for A be reached.
That influences us teachers of course. We must plan our lessons to meet
the knowledge requirements at different times and in different ways
during one's studies from Grade 4 to 6, and from Grades 7 to 9
to avoid those large grade swings up and down.
But this principal allows one to progress from an A to a D since we make new assessments each new term
We hope that you hae now got a better understanding about how the teaching curriculum is designed.
and how the new grading scale works and how it affects our teaching
Together we can get the students, your children, to reach as high as possible.