Individually, Informatively, Newly, Actively, Comprehensively –– to put it short, Differently. This is how pupils in primary schools can now be evaluated. At the end of the road in the described method of evaluation is the report card, which is not based on grades, but on a combined evaluation in which teachers use criteria to determine the level of knowledge of the pupil and supplement everything with a verbal assessment. Teachers may also include a grade on the report card, but this is no longer the main motive. The new report card also involves the pupils themselves in the assessment process, through self-assessment, and takes a completely new approach to behavioural assessment.
“I am proud of the fact that colleagues at our Faculty of Education have devoted more than three years to presenting the new form of report cards today,” said Simona Koryčánková, dean of the Faculty of Education, at the beginning of the press conference, adding that she also considers current report cards to be insufficient, as they do not consider the wide range of abilities of pupils.
Jana Kratochvílová, head of the Department of Education and principal investigator of the project, emphasized that the report card her team is presenting, which has been commented on by 115 teachers, 51 classes, and 821 pupils over the course of three years, is mainly an offer. “An offer for schools and teachers to change teaching, to work more collaboratively with each other and also to support the relationship between the student, the teacher, and the parents.”
The certificate is six pages long. On these pages, pupils will find their strengths, the progress they have made, and recommendations for further learning. The report card also takes a completely new approach to assessing personal, social, and learning behaviour. The last page of the report card is also new and is designed for pupil self-evaluation. The report card thus strengthens the active role of pupils in the evaluation process, not only in writing the report card but also in regular teaching. It gives pupils the opportunity to participate in their own development and to plan their own learning. “We want children not only to acquire knowledge, but also to actively shape their own educational story,” Kratochvílová added.
The Ivančice-Řeznovice Primary School and Kindergarten has long been looking for a new type of report card that would correspond to the current times and provide comprehensive and clear information about pupils’ learning progress. “For 30 years we have been evaluating our pupils only verbally. But we have found that the evaluation process is not followed by a report card during the year. That's why we welcomed the opportunity to join the project,” explained the school's headmistress Karla Černá, adding that the change in assessment leads pupils to take more responsibility for their results and teaches them to plan further learning and to look more comprehensively at how they behave towards others.
Martina Raiserová, the principal of the Střílky Primary School and Kindergarten, is also convinced that grades do not say much about a pupil's entire personality. “We are a school that starts from scratch with innovation. We have always written a verbal comment on the report card, but every teacher has done it differently – intuitively. Now, thanks to the formative report card and the team from Masaryk University, we have a comprehensive system supported by methodology; we are implementing it in the school, and it is a great help.”
The accompanying materials, including methodological support, can be found on the project website. The use of the report card in practice and its inclusion among the approved forms has been supported by the Association of Primary School Principals and has also been given the green light by the Ministry of Education.
“In the strategic plan, we declare our support for the formative report card, so for the Ministry of Education, the report card is a godsend. The Faculty of Education at Masaryk University has prepared a report card containing verbal assessments refined according to predetermined criteria; it has prepared a project exactly in line with how the report card could change,” said Michal Černý, director of the Department of Basic Education and Youth, adding that the ministry now faces the task of getting the new form of the report card into a decree with model report cards. So far, there are only two basic forms of report cards – one with grades and another allowing for verbal evaluation. “I can promise 99 per cent that the new form will appear in a decree during the second half of the current school year,” Černý said.
The experience of schools that have tried the new report cards shows that the change in the final assessment has had a significant impact on the overall concept of teaching. Dozens of other schools and multi-year grammar schools are already interested in the new report cards.
School assessment is an important component of communication between teachers and students and between teachers and parents. The report card is an important message for children and their parents. Recently, an increasing number of schools have tried to approach end-of-year evaluation in a different way. The design of the new school report card is the result of a three-year collaboration between dozens of experts from the Faculty of Education at Masaryk University and primary school teachers. Pupils and parents also contributed to its development by providing feedback during the development of the report card. The report card was made possible thanks to the support of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic under the ÉTA Programme.