Assessment

Policy
The School at St. George Place
Philosophy
Assessment at The School at St. George Place is a consistent ongoing process used to improve
student and teacher performance, as well as to provide feedback and communication to
students and parents. As an IB World candidate school within the Texas Public Education
System, we assess in an effort to meet multiple standards. Assessments will be used to
determine student progress in fulfilling the attributes of the Learner Profile and to measure the
extent to which students have demonstrated the Essential Elements of the Primary Years
Programme. Additionally, assessment allows us to move students toward fulfillment of our
schools mission to create reflective life-long learners. The IB Essential Elements are:
knowledge, transdisciplinary skills, attitudes, action, and concepts. Assessment allows us to
gauge how well the Essential Elements have been understood and applied to instruction in the
classroom. At St. George, we strive to bring success to all students through the cyclical process
of collecting, reflecting upon, and reporting assessment information. Our assessment policy
outlines the principles that guide our assessment decisions and practices, including tools and
strategies utilized to ensure that authentic and effective assessment are the norm on our
campus.

Principle
An effective assessment includes teachers, students, and parents. It is our belief that in order
for an assessment to be effective, teachers should embrace backwards design and plan with the
summative assessment in mind. In addition, when planning for assessments, teachers should
take into account a variety of learning styles and allow students to demonstrate understanding
in a variety of ways. Effective planning will insure that assessments are open-ended to allow all
students the opportunity to achieve success in the classroom. During the delivery of
instruction, teachers will use formative assessments to track student progress towards
summative goals. Once a formative or summative assessment is given, teachers will review and
reflect upon the results to plan and further guide instruction. The students roles in effective
assessment are to share their learning and demonstrate their knowledge and skills during the
delivery of instruction. Students are held accountable for accessing prior knowledge, building

upon it, and then utilizing it to acquire new knowledge. Once students have been assessed and
teachers have provided feedback, students will reflect on their own progress towards their
learning goals and create new individual goals. The parents role is to work with both the
teachers and their children to encourage and support the accomplishment of students
individualized learning goals. The parents will support students as they reflect on their goals
and help them to accomplish new goals.

Reporting Assessment
Student progress will be reported in a variety of ways in order to ensure that parents, students,
and teachers are all aware of student progress. Just as teachers are continuously assessing
student learning, they will also be providing immediate feedback to correct student
misunderstandings and provide further support to students. As part of the reporting process,
parents, teachers, and students will meet to discuss progress. These conferences between
parent and student, student and teacher, or parent and teacher will include a discussion of the
students progress towards goals in the classroom, the setting of new learning goals, and
reflecting on accomplished goals. During the student and parent conferences, students will
walk their parent(s) through the work they have accomplished during the units of inquiry and
the goals they have set. The IB portfolio will be used during this time as an ongoing showcase
of student work and summative assessments for the units of inquiry. Academic progress
reports will be sent home half-way through each grading period to update parents on student
progress. Academic and IB report cards will be sent home each 9-week grading period. The IB
report card will document student progress in regards to the Learner Profile.

Recording Assessment
At the end of each unit of inquiry students will complete a summative assessment and reflect
on the learning within the unit of inquiry. These reflections will be recorded and kept in the IB
Portfolio to be shared with parents. Each grade level will develop a system to record student
progress that is aligned to HISD board policy. This system will include, but is not limited to, the
use of anecdotal records, notes, the grade book, direct questioning of students and assessment
data. Furthermore, based on input from our IB Steering Committee, which was comprised of

teacher representatives from each grade level, we have developed a portfolio policy which will
aid in the reporting and recording of assessments. The IB Portfolio policy is as follows:

Student reflection on current planner.

Work samples from each planner:
o 1 student choice
o Summative
o 1 teacher choice (optional)
Rationale for student choice work sample
Samples are chosen by teacher and students.
Will contain the central idea, the lines of inquiry and the Learner Profile Report Card
Portfolios will be shared with parents.
Work will be stored in a 3-ring binder. Students in 3rd grade will be given a flash drive so
that they may begin storing their work digitally.
Portfolios will be stored in the classroom so that students can easily access them.

Practice
The assessment practices we embrace at The School at St. George Place will be thoughtfully
designed to consider structure, frequency, feedback, and reflection. In order to achieve this,
we will use a variety of strategies and tools. Assessments of students will be conducted before,
during, and after learning experiences. Pre-assessments will gauge learning before instruction
has occurred. These pre-assessments will serve as a tool to help teachers further develop a
summative assessment and plan content accordingly. Continually throughout the delivery of
instruction and the learning process, teachers will be conducting formative assessments.
Formative assessments may be more formal (such as journal responses, checklists, or exit
tickets) or informal (such as anectodal notes). Since assessment will be formal and informal in
nature, it will be on-going to check for student understanding, with student success always
being the ultimate goal. The key to effective assessment is feedback that is direct and
immediate to allow teachers and students to correct any misunderstandings and facilitate the
learning process. Additionally, students will reflect upon their learning in regards to knowledge
acquired and achievement of learning goals. Reflections at the end of the units of inquiry will
be used to develop future goals. In addition, reflections may also be informal, and/or formative.
Strategies and Tools
The strategies and tools we will employ to gather information regarding student progress will
vary depending on the content addressed. The ultimate goal in using these tools and strategies

is to gain an authentic picture of student learning. Ideally, assessments will be based on the
need to gather information on student progress and this decision will be made at the classroom
level. In addition, assessments such as the summative assessment at the conclusion of a unit of
inquiry, will be decided on by teams of teachers. District-wide assessments will also be
administered as required. Strategies to be used include, but are not limited to:

Reflections
Demonstrations
Re-enactments
Models
Presentation
Conferring
Conferences
Open-end response
Performance assessment
o DRA
o iStation
Selected responses
o Benchmarks
o State/District tests

Certain tools will be used to quantify and qualify students progress toward goals. The use of
these tools will further inform all stakeholders regarding students success and will ultimately
inform teachers regarding instructional decisions. The tools listed below will be utilized,
however it is important to note that these tools are not made solely by the teacher, but in
collaboration with students.

Rubrics
Exemplars
Records
Trackers
Checklists
Continuums
Learning Goals

State and Local Requirements

As a public school in the state of Texas we are required to administer several assessments throughout
the year. The STAAR test is administered yearly in grades 3 through 5 in the areas of math, reading,
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writing (4 grade only), and science. The results of these tests are used as promotion standards in these
grade levels. For grades K through 5, we administer iStation assesments to provide a comprehensive
picture of a students reading and language arts development. In addition, we administer the Texas
English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS) to English language learners (ELLs) to assess
their mastery of the English language. Due to our curriculum waiver obtained from the school board,
we have been given the latitude to develop our own benchmark assessments in lieu of administering
district benchmarks. We also administer the Stanford test in grades Kindergarten through 5. Stanford is
a norm-referenced test and is used in conjunction with the Naglieri Nonverbal Abilities Test to screen
students for the districts gifted and talented program.