Assessment

Assessment is a daily, integrated practice in our Early School. Teachers observe children closely, document their learning, and reflect together on what each student needs to learn and grow.

To make learning visible for parents, we use portfolios. A portfolio is a purposeful collection of evidence of a child's learning, gathered over time, which demonstrates a child's efforts, progress, and achievement. We collect samples of our students' work and make written notes about what we see the child doing. Observations about how a child plays with others, listens to stories, puts a story in order, works a puzzle, builds with blocks, and uses small and large muscles are also included.

This method of assessment shows your child's growth in a natural setting based on real performance. Portfolio assessment also allows children to participate in their own evaluation. It focuses on what children are doing rather than what they are not doing. Portfolio assessment also helps us plan our instruction and meet our students' individual needs. In other words, observation and assessment drives our planning and the implementation of our curriculum.

In the Lower School assessment is ongoing and focused on providing useful feedback regarding the social, emotional, physical, and intellectual growth of the child.

Teachers use a variety of methods to assess student learning, including:

• Focused observation
• Research-based assessment tools
• Teacher-developed assessments
• Individual conferences
• Criteria-based rubrics
• Students’ evaluation of their own work

Based in sound principles of child development, we recognize that each child grows in different dimensions and at different rates. Our assessment practices allow us to evaluate each child as a unique individual, rooted in our knowledge of developmentally-appropriate learning goals and national standards.

Information about a child’s progress is communicated both informally and at regularly-scheduled intervals throughout the year. Two parent-teacher conferences are scheduled each year to discuss a child’s progress, and at the end of the school year an extensive written report on each child is prepared. These narrative reports summarize the student's social, emotional, and academic progress for the year. There is also frequent informal communication between teachers and parents as we work together to support the growth of each child.

When we evaluate students in the Middle School, it is always with an eye toward growth. We want feedback to be valuable, authentic, and meaningful. We want students to know that we see what they are doing well and that we’re here to help them stretch where they need to stretch. It is why we write narrative evaluations at the end of each trimester instead of assigning grades.

When we evaluate students, we want them involved in the process. We want them to reflect on how they’re doing. At the same time that we hold up a mirror from the teachers’ perspective, we ask students to reflect on their own learning. Many teachers ask students to participate in a self-evaluation on their work, their participation, and their engagement to see where they recognize their own growing edges.

Part of the work of learning to self-reflect is the work of reflecting on the written evaluation from teachers.  We help students do this each trimester in a few ways:

• Students read their evaluations during advisee time before they are sent home to parents.
• Advisors ask them to highlight areas of success, places where they did good work or ways they showed up well.  
• Advisors also ask them to highlight areas ripe for growth, places where greater engagement might make a positive difference, places where they see they can grow, places where they can do better.
• After reading and reflecting, students are asked to set goals for themselves.  Advisors use those goals to inform how they work with each student to nudge, push, pull, and often cheer a student forward in their growth.
• Advisors are then better equipped to interact with students’ teachers in support of the student’s goals.

Our hope is that by engaging in the process so fully, students are deepening their own understanding of themselves as learners, sharpening their self-advocacy skills, and increasing their internal motivation to reach for their own goals.  All of this is, of course, life-long work.  Assessing with intention in early adolescence allows students to begin what will become a life-long habit of self-reflection.

In addition to the narrative evaluations, two parent-teacher conferences are scheduled during the school year, and additional conferences can be scheduled at any time.

A year-end report, written by the student's advisor, tells a comprehensive narrative of the student's growth across intellectual, social-emotional, and other areas throughout the year is sent home in June.

We nurture our students' growth and challenge them to set high, hopeful expectations for their learning and development.

The Upper School uses a non-graded, non-ranked, narrative evaluation system that is personal and comprehensive. Each trimester families receive extensive written evaluations that review the student’s overall progress in each course including: achievement on papers and exams; contributions to class; sense of responsibility; and growth of understanding. Students earn credit or no credit for each course.

For students preparing applications for admission to colleges and universities, the College Counselor reads all term reports for all classes from all years in the Upper School and writes an academic narrative summarizing the student’s performance across eight curricular areas: English and Language Arts; Mathematics; Natural Sciences; Social Sciences; Foreign Language; Cultural & Visual Arts; Life Skills & Service; and Physical Education.