Prairie Valley rolling out new report card achievement scale for K-9 students

Reports cards for kindergarten to Grade 9 students in the Prairie Valley School Division will now look a little different.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Education, the division is rolling out a new report card achievement scale.

Grades 6-9 will see the biggest change, moving away from grades ‘A+’ to ‘ED’ to a four-point system – beginning (BE), approaching (AP), meeting (ME) and exemplary (EX).

“They were probably more used to letter grades or percentages in some cases and while the curriculum is being renewed and rewritten in outcome-based, there was still that transfer back into percentages,” said Luc Lerminiaux, Prairie Valley School Division director and CEO.

“Now, they will see they are being graded on a four-point scale.”

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Kindergarten to Grade 5 will see minor changes to their, already-in-place, four-point system.

“They are going to see a difference in the letters that are used to describe their mastery of outcomes,” Lerminiaux said.

The old report cards used limited progress (L), progress towards (P), meeting (M) and advanced (A).

Now the lettering will be the same from kindergarten to Grade 9.

Lerminiaux said the new lettering was recommended by the province, to create consistency.

“We’re very excited about the change. It allows for more descriptive information back to parents, family and students,” Lerminiaux said.

“A letter or a numeric grade is often an average of certain assignments and tests. With outcome-based reporting, each curriculum is broken down into skills and pieces that students are supposed to master.”

Lerminiaux said the system prevents comparing one student and from another. He said it’s about where the student is, relative to where the province wants them to be.

“It allows parents to know where the student stands, relative to what is expected from them, be it in Grade 5 science or whatever else,” Lerminiaux said.

Lerminiaux said Grade 10-12 reporting systems will remain the same, due in large part around entrance requirements for post-secondary education.