REGINA – Beginning next year, three Catholic elementary schools will eliminate letter grades and the honour roll for student in grades 6 to 8.
“It shifts the emphasis in teaching and learning away from competition to personal improvement,” said Patrick Lewis, a University of Regina early childhood education professor.
Students can keep working and learning even after the end of unit test. The new approach is called “outcomes-based reporting” and research suggests students actually have better success. Of course there is one major challenge.
“It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time on the part of the teacher and on the part of the student,” said Lewis.
The school board declined a request for an interview by Global News. In a statement they said, “For a number of years, the Regina Catholic School Division has been using this type of reporting in grades 1-5. The levels of achievement are identified as: not yet, beginning, meeting, or exceeding in specific outcome areas.”
Lewis said moving away from grades and towards individualized feedback is likely to increase student success, but it might take a lot more education to convince parents.
Even so, the board said they are acting from teacher and parent input and no matter what, they will still celebrate student success. How they’ll do that will be decided later.
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