Dear Parents/Carers,
Please find enclosed your child’s Interim Academic Report, signalling the mid-way point through their journey in the MYP curriculum this year.
The MYP provides our students with an internationally recognised curriculum, specifically designed to produce global learners who will enhance and develop our community. We value all of our students endeavours towards their academic progress, something which I hope this interim report recognises for your child.
To support you with the information within the academic report, I have also enclosed an MYP Assessment Guide. This guide will provide you with an overview of the MYP and breakdown the assessment and grading structure of the curriculum. A copy of this guide can also be found on our website.
If you have any questions then please contact the academy using our central email address admin@thehalleyacademy.org.uk
Yours faithfully,
John Dixon
Principal
IB Middle Years Programme: Assessment Guidance for Parents
What is the Middle Years Programme?
All secondary academies within Leigh Academies Trust align their educational beliefs and values to reflect the IB Middle Years Programme philosophy. This is to develop enquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.
The Middle Years Programme (MYP) curriculum is designed to support students in Key Stage 3 to become independent learners, who can discover the links between subjects and the real world. The MYP emphasises the study of eight subject groups:
- Language Acquisition
- Language and Literature
- Individuals and Societies
- Sciences
- Mathematics
- Arts
- Physical and Health Education
- Design
The MYP places great emphasis on international-mindedness, interdisciplinary learning and service to others. The programme also offers opportunities to be actively involved in the community and promotes environmental responsibility in an ever changing world.
How will my child be assessed?
Assessments will take a variety of forms, both formative and summative:
- Formative assessments are a range of formal and informal assessment procedures conducted by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student achievement. The goal is to accelerate progress, to improve learning and to help the student become a more independent learner. Examples of formative assessments include: conferencing where a student discusses their work with a teacher, fellow student or another adult, reflection where a student reviews their own work, feedback – WWW (What Went Well) and EBI (Even Better If), teacher observations during a lesson or from completed classwork/ homework.
- Summative assessments conducted by teachers are used to evaluate learning at the end of a learning process ie. end of a unit of work. The goal is to provide a final judgement of the learning that has taken place, to identify gaps in knowledge and understanding and to help the student to improve. Examples of summative assessments: tests, examinations, final essay or presentation. This work is usually given a grade or mark.
Teachers collect both formative and summative evidence throughout a unit of work. This helps them to adapt their teaching to meet the needs of students and also assists when reporting to parents, students and other stakeholders.
Each subject group within the MYP has 4 set assessment areas called criteria (A B C D) which are subject specific. This helps students to develop the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in each subject group. These skills are often transferable to other subject groups and aspects of learning. Teachers will assess your child according to each of these criteria at least twice across each year.
What do the MYP assessment criteria look like?
The MYP assessment process is a criterion-related model. The strengths of this model are:
- students know before even attempting the work what needs to be done to reach each level;
- it helps teachers to clarify and express their expectations about assignments in a way that students can understand;
- students are assessed for what they can do, rather than being ranked against each other;
- students receive feedback on their performance based on the criteria level descriptors.
| Subject Group | Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D |
| Language and Literature | Analysing | Organising | Producing Text | Using Language |
| Language Acquisition | Communicating spoken and visual text | Comprehending spoken and visual text | Communication | Using language in spoken and/or written form |
| Individuals and Societies | Knowing and understanding | Investigating | Communicating | Thinking critically |
| Arts | Knowing and understanding | Developing skills | Thinking creatively | Responding |
| Design | Inquiring and analysing | Developing ideas | Creating the solution | Evaluating |
| Mathematics | Knowing
and understanding |
Investigating
patterns |
Communicating | Applying mathematics
in real-life contexts |
| Sciences | Knowing and understanding | Inquiring and designing | Processing and evaluating | Reflecting on the impacts of science |
| Physical and
Health Education |
Knowing and understanding | Planning for performance | Applying and performing | Reflecting and improving performance |
| Interdisciplinary | Disciplinary grounding | Synthesising | Communicating | Reflecting |
As the table above shows, the MYP has a clear set of assessment criteria for each subject group. Having clear criteria is very helpful as students will know what the learning expectations are for a particular level of achievement before attempting an assignment . As a result, your child will be able to monitor their own progress. The criteria also supports teachers to clarify expectations to students and can shape lessons to ensure your child meets the requirements of the assessment.
Each criterion has eight achievement levels. These are added together to give an achievement level out of a total of 32.
Converting MYP Achievement levels into an MYP Grade
Teachers must gather sufficient evidence from a range of assessment tasks to enable them to make a professional and informed judgement guided by the criteria to determine a student’s achievement level. Achievement levels for the four criteria are added together creating a total number out of 32. Using the table below, this is converted to an MYP Grade from 1-7 with 7 being the highest. This table describes in broad terms what a student can do.
|
Sum of assessed criteria |
MYP Grade | Description |
| 28-32 | 7 | Produces high-quality, frequently innovative work. Communicates comprehensive, nuanced understanding of concepts and contexts. Consistently demonstrates sophisticated critical and creative thinking. Frequently transfers knowledge and skills with independence and expertise in a variety of complex classroom and real-world situations. |
| 24-27 | 6 | Produces high-quality, occasionally innovative work. Communicates extensive understanding of concepts and contexts. Demonstrates critical and creative thinking, frequently with sophistication. Uses knowledge and skills in familiar and unfamiliar classroom and real-world situations, often with independence. |
| 19-23 | 5 | Produces generally high-quality work. Communicates secure understanding of concepts and contexts. Demonstrates critical and creative thinking, sometimes with sophistication. Uses knowledge and skills in familiar classroom and real-world situations, and, with support, some unfamiliar real-world situations |
| 15-18 | 4 | Produces good quality work. Communicates basic understanding of most concepts and contexts with few misunderstandings and minor gaps. Often demonstrates basic critical and creative thinking. Uses knowledge and skills with some flexibility in familiar classroom situations, but requires support in unfamiliar situations. |
| 10-14 | 3 | Produces work of an acceptable quality. Communicates basic understanding of many concepts and contexts, with occasionally significant misunderstandings or gaps. Begins to demonstrate some basic critical and creative thinking. Is often inflexible in the use of knowledge and skills, requiring support even in familiar classroom situations. |
| 6-9 | 2 | Produces work of limited quality. Expresses misunderstandings or significant gaps in understanding for many concepts and contexts. Infrequently demonstrates critical or creative thinking. Generally inflexible in the use of knowledge and skills, infrequently applying knowledge and skills. |
| 1-5 | 1 | Produces work of very limited quality. Conveys many significant misunderstandings or lacks understanding of most concepts and skills. Very rarely demonstrates critical or creative thinking. Very inflexible, rarely using knowledge or skills. |
Reporting Progress
During the course of the academic year students will be awarded an MYP Interim Grade and at the end of the year a MYP Final Grade will be awarded based on the summative assessments that have taken place during the course of the year. Academic reports will be emailed to parents electronically and provide information on the students progress against the MYP criteria.