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Our school terminology is certainly not easy to understand.

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Perhaps you have been in a development talk and heard us say that your child reads fluently,

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has a well-developed argument and that we make assessments based on the knowledge requirements.

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We who work in the schools are required to explain how we work

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and you play an important part in your child's education.

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Therefore we want you to understand how we work with assessment and grading.

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It's difficult to avoid all the negative reports in the media about today's school.

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The media has stated among ather things that our students do not have the same knowledge as students in other countries.

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One of the solutions has been to create a new curriculum

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which will be clearer for us teachers and will give us better results.

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So in 2011 we got a new curriculum and a new grading system.

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This explains what we will work with, a little about how we will work with it and what we will evaluate.

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Among other things, we have got a list of subject content in every subject we will be working with.

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It also includes which skills we want your child to develop.

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And we also have knowledge requirements, perhaps you know them better as grading criteria,

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which explain what we will be assessing.

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Knowledge requirements exist for Grade 3, Grade 6 and Grade 9.

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Today we have a goal and knowledge based grading system.

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But I believe parents and guardians are recognizing the relative grading system.

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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.

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In that system a student didn't want to help a classmate because what if that classmate got better results?

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Then maybe I wouldn't get a 5.

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Because we are compared to the other students.

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No, today we have the goal and knowledge based grading system.

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That means that we have definite goals and knowledge requirements that we teachers work to reach.

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And all the children, regardless of their classmates can reach those goals.

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And it is our responsibility to get each student to reach the highest goals possible.

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And then we assess the quality of the goals they have reached.

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Today we have a new grading scale. Not a new grading system, but a new grading scale.

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It was we teachers who wanted this. We wanted more grading levels.

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We had G or Satisfactory, VG or Very Good, and MVG or excellent, but we thought that wasn't enough.

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So we started to use VG++ and G- to more acurately show where certain students were in the grading levels.

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But now we have got a new scale and more letters to use.

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From F to A. And the passing grades are E to A.

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F is considered a failing grade. And that means that if we assess a students knowledge to be at the F level

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then we must consider how we can support that student

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so they can reach as far as possible and receive a passing grade.

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And if you as parent or guardian have a child in danger of receiving an F

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then the school will inform you and discuss what support is being planned

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to help your child reach as high a result as possiible.

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Some of you parents attempt to translate our new grading letters, especially E to A, to the old 1 to 5

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where an E would become a 1. But that's not correct.

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That is a completely different grade today. Quite a bit is needed to receive a grade of E.

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But if you´re stubborn and insist on translating then an E is more like the old 3.

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Here is what the knowledge requirements look like in the curriculm.

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These are the knowledge requirements for geography in Grade 6.

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Knowledge requirements for the different grading levels are based on these same texts. What is changed is

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for example development from basic to excellent knowledge

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and from simple to well-developed reasoning.

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And this structure is the same even for Grade 9.

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If we look at for example E, it says that "The student has the basic knowledge of the interaction between

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people, society and nature and demonstrates that by presenting simple and partly developed reasoning

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about causes and consequences of population distribution, migration, climate, vegetation" etcetera.

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If we look at C: "The student has good knowledge about the interaction between people, society and nature

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and demonstrates that through a relatively well-developed

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reasoning about the causes and consequences of"

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And if we look at A: "The student has very good knowledge about

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the interaction between people, society and nature

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and demonstrates that through a well-developed and structured reasoning."

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So if we go back and look at E again: "The student has a basic knowledge about..."

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What is that then? Well, the key is "demonstrates that through simple

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and partly developed reasoning about..."

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We teachers should get the student to show how they can reason

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so that we can assess the quality that they do it.

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And that is so we can later decide what grade the student will receive.

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But what about now. We were going to have more grading levels.

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But we have text only for E, C and A.

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Well, the idea is that for these in between levels one must think

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to get a D- every goal on the E level should have been reached

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and the majority of the C level goals.

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Then one receives a D.

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If one reaches all the E goals, all the C goals and the majority of the A goals, one receives a B.

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These knowledge goals do not only control how we assess a student's knowledge,

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they also control our teaching.

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If a student is to be able to reason about causes and consequences

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then our teaching has to be about that.

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We have to discuss different causes and consequences

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so that the student can develop their reasoning about them.

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And that is how our knowledge requirements are structured.

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This was the knowledge requirement for Grade 6 as an example.

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And we also have knowledge requirements for Grade 9.

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But how does that work? Do we not have knowedge requiremenets for Grade 4 and Grade 5 or Grade 7 and Grade 8?

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No, we will use the knowledge requirements in Grade 6 when we make our assessments in Grade 4 and Grade 5.

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And we will use the knowledge requirements from Grade 9 when we make our assessments i Grade 7 and Grade 8.

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But there is a progression in these texts.

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That is to say that when we assess a simple argument in Grade 4

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then it is not the same as a simple reasoning in Grade 6.

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It is a little simpler.

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Because one can only expect reasoning from the teaching

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one has had as a 10 year old or as a 14 year old.

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But what is a simple reasoning and a well-developed reasoning? How are they different?

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We teachers have received a few hints in regards to this. One usually says

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that simple reasoning is recognized by a few connections to the content

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and shorter reasoning connections.

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A leads to B.

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And well- developed reasoning-

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has several connections to the content and longer reasoning connections.

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A leads to B which leads to C and maybe back to A.

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That is how we teachers know if reasoning is simply developed or well developed.

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The important think is not how much content a student can recite, but what they can do with that content.

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In this case, how well one reasons with the content.

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Simply or well-developed.

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We are working towards developing your child's ability to lead and follow reasoning in mathematics

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to communicate in speaking and writing in Swedish and and we are assisted by the knowledge requirements

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which we use to assess how well your child is developing.

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And then we have the central content which is the basis of our teaching.

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Because we believe that a child who can reason, argue,

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discuss and analyse will make the content their own

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and in that way be familiar with it. Instead of only learning something by heart and reciting it on one occasion.

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- a familiarity which we believe can lead to a better result in school.

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Then how can you parents and guardians help at home?

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preferably by working with how and why questions at home.

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Talk to your child about: Why is it so? How does a seed become a tree?

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Because then you bring out the reasoning abilities that we can develop at school.

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Because this reasoning about how a seed becomes a tree requires not only that a student has learned about photosynthesis by heart

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but it demands an understanding of the entire process.

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And glossaries- I believe it is customary for parents to test these at home.

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But we are not judging how many glossaries a student can recite

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but what one does with those words, how one communicates.

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Because that is what is important at school today.

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We have undeniably a communicative curriculum.

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And many parents and guardians wonder what happens to a child who is shy

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when one is communicating and discussing all the time?

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It is important to remember that are several ways to demonstrate knowledge.

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One can reason and discuss in writing. One teacher i met had chosen to chat online with the students

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to assess how well they had reasoned in a discussion and how they led the discussion forward.

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He had a student who he perceived as being very shy

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and when he chatted with the student he learned the student had a lot of knowledge.

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And that is a completely natural way for a 12 year old to communicate.

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How do we teachers grade really?

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It is important that it is my overall assessment of a student's knowledge when I give a grade.

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And that I do in relationship to the knowledge requirements.

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What does that mean?

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If I decide that a student should receive a grade of E

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then I know that the student has the basic knowledge of...

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and can lead a simple and partly structured argument of...

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If something is missing in this list

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in spite of the fact that the student got a chance to show this in several different ways but has not reached that goal

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then the grade is an F.

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If I decide, however, to give a grade of A

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then it means that the student has very good knowledge about

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and can lead a well structure argument that is well-developed.

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But that doesn't mean a student has to show that all the time.

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One can practice at school and one can certainly have simpler arguments at times

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and still get a final grade of A.

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Because that is my overall assessment of what I know about the student that is important today.

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And that is how we grade in the schools.

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All of the grades up to Grade 9 are called term grades.

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That means that we will use the entire grading scale every term -from F to A.

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And it is of course possible to receive an A already in the autumn of Grade 6 or in Grade 7 or Grade 8.

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But that is not a guarantee that one will receive an A in Grade 9.

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Imagine it is the autumn term in Grade 6.

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We have worked on the areas in the course plan and those are the parts we will assess a grade.

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Let's say that the student has done the work with an A in quality.

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What should the student get? An A of course.

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Then comes the spring and now we have to work on the other parts of the course plan.

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So we work with these in a different way and the student gets to try.

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And yet for different reasons the student produces work of E quality.

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What will the grade then be for Grade 6? Some parts reach A and some reach E.

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If some of the parts reach only E, one can never receive a C. Instead that will be a D.

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What kind of school lowers my child's result from an A to a D?

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Students usually say, "Why is it that my worst performance pulls down my overall grade?"

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But the principal is this- to reach an A must all the goals for A be reached.

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That influences us teachers of course. We must plan our lessons to meet

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the knowledge requirements at different times and in different ways

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during one's studies from Grade 4 to 6, and from Grades 7 to 9

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to avoid those large grade swings up and down.

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But this principal allows one to progress from an A to a D since we make new assessments each new term

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We hope that you hae now got a better understanding about how the teaching curriculum is designed.

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and how the new grading scale works and how it affects our teaching

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Together we can get the students, your children, to reach as high as possible.