Assessment

• Completing the Student Self-Assessment
• Core Competencies
• Foundation Skills Assessment - FSA
• Interim Grade Reports
• Understanding Your Report Card

Completing the Student Self-Assessment

The ability to self-reflect is a life skill and student self-assessment is a central element of BC's curriculum. The K-9 self-assessment tool can be accessed in each student's homepage in Encom.

To complete the survey, simply follow these steps:

1. Go to the student's Encom home page.

2.  Click the Self-Assessment Survey button.

3. Read through this page in Encom:

4. Choose a number from the four point scale for each row.

5. Add a goal or two, and done!

Thank you for participating in student self-assessment.

Core Competencies

The core competencies are a set of intellectual, personal, and social and emotional proficiencies that students will develop through the course of their schooling. These core competencies encompass a set of skills and abilities that are embedded in each discipline and area of learning. Students will learn skills at Flex Academy in self-assessing their core competencies.

See this page for more information

Foundation Skills Assessment - FSA

The Foundation Skills Assessment is an annual, province-wide assessment of British Columbia students’ academic skills, and provides a snapshot of how well BC students are learning foundation skills in Literacy and Numeracy. These are assessments for students in Grades 4 and 7. 

The FSA is not optional unless students meet a very narrow set of requirements for exemption.

HCOS will be administering the assessments and families receive a package in order to carry them out at home. Here is some information to help you and your child prepare for the tests.

There are two categories of assessment; the assessments in total take about four hours. Here are the categories:

• Literacy
• Numeracy

The FSA will take your child about 4 hours to complete over a few days during a four week writing period. The assessments include online and written questions and a reflection activity.

The written parts of the assessment will be marked by teachers from HCOS and the results sent to your support teacher.

The results will be based on the following proficiencies:

• Extending – Sophisticated understanding of the concepts and competencies in relation to expected learning.
• Proficient – Complete understanding of the concepts and competencies in relation to expected learning.
• Developing - Partial understanding of the concepts and competencies in relation to expected learning.
• Emerging –Initial understanding of the concepts and competencies in relation to expected learning. 

FSA Questions and Answers

What does FSA stand for?	FSA stands for Foundation Skills Assessment and this test is given to all students in BC enrolled in grades 4 and 7.
What subjects are tested?	The student is tested in Literacy and Numeracy.
What is an invigilator?	An invigilator is a person responsible for supervising a test. The invigilator for the FSAs is either a teacher (in our case, with HCOS) or any person the administration deems as unbiased. This can be the parent of the child.
What time is involved for each test?	About 2 hours for each of the two sections.

 

Interim Grade Reports

In addition to three formal reporting periods, Flex Academy has developed an Interim Grade Report (IGR) to ensure families are aware of any challenges or concerns regarding their child’s progress between reporting periods. 

About the IGR:

• IGRs are an optional report designed for teachers to communicate to families any concerns that they may have with a student. For example:
  • A student is performing below expectations
  • A student has significantly dropped in their course progress or achievement
  • There is a lack of communication with the teacher
  • General concerns regarding a course grade
  • If a student is in danger of failing a course
• An IGR can be sent out at any point; however, the natural checkpoints for teachers will be in October, January and April - the mid points of each term. 
• It is possible for a student to receive more than one IGR in a school year.
• IGRs will be completed on a per subject basis. 
• IGRs will not replace early interventions, ongoing communication, or formative feedback provided by a teacher.

How it will look:

The IGR will include the teacher’s name, the current interim grade, the current course completion percentage (if applicable), and two comment fields. The teacher will identify their cause for concern, and provide information on ways to support learning in the comments.

Parents will receive an email with a PDF of the IGR when a teacher creates it, and can view it in Encom via the Interim Grade Report Button

Understanding Your Report Card

Flex Academy has three reporting periods for all grades, Kindergarten through Grade 12. In addition to the regular reporting terms, teachers have the option of submitting an Interim Grade Report, which will be completed if a student’s level of performance is below expectations or the teacher has cause for concern.

We have designed the report card to give a clear picture of a student’s progress and learning. A list of the student's courses will appear connected with the teacher’s assessment based on the learning standards.

Grades will be reported using the following scales:

• Grades K-9 will receive a report using proficiency scales.
• Grades 10-12 will receive percentage grades.

K-12 Marking Legend 

Report Card Comments:

K-9

We want to ensure parents receive easy-to-read and informative comments regarding student progress. To accomplish this, we have created a system to ensure consistent, high quality comments from teachers that give parents and guardians the bigger picture, help identify areas of struggle and provide insight into your student’s success at school. The comments will focus on the following five areas:

Student Engagement and Behaviour
This section reports on your child's level of engagement in learning and their behaviour, focusing on their developing skills in the Core Competencies. These competencies include communication, personal and social thinking, and creative and critical thinking. For more information regarding the characteristics of the competencies, visit BC Curriculum: Core Competencies.
Literacy	Numeracy
Even though the new curriculum encourages students to dig into topics and broaden their knowledge through inquiry projects, it is still important that each child has a solid literacy and numeracy foundation. A specific comment will be written on literacy, identify the student’s skills and abilities based on reading, writing, speaking and listening across a variety of subjects.	Another comment will cover all aspects of numeracy to help identify skills and abilities to understand and apply mathematical concepts, processes, problem solving, and decision making.
Areas of Strengths
To celebrate successes, the teacher will highlight areas for celebration, projects completed, or skills and learning accomplished that term. The teacher will not focus on every project or area of learning, but rather on one or two that stand out and demonstrate your child’s strengths.
Ways to Support Learning
To encourage student learning, teachers will also include a constructive component that provides feedback on future learning. These comments are intended to support your child with ideas, strategies and tangible ways to address areas of concern, or areas to focus on in the following term.

Students will continue to receive a grade for every subject. Online Courses and Community Connections Plus courses will still receive subject-specific comments twice a year.

Grades 10-12

Students will continue to receive subject-specific comments twice a year. 

It is our hope that the Report Card will provide parents and guardians with a more accurate and concise reflection on how their student is doing at school.