Students entering Class 3 this September will become the first cohort to undergo the transition to secondary school under a new two-year assessment model, as Ministry of Education Transformation officials sought to reassure anxious parents during a town hall meeting at Alexandra School in St Peter on Tuesday night.
The new approach, which replaces the traditional one-day Common Entrance format for future cohorts, will see students accumulate marks over Classes 3 and 4 through a combination of continuous assessment and standardised tests.
Education minister Chad Blackman said the changes reflected a need to move beyond a system that judged children based on a few hours of testing.
“We’ve determined as a government that the traditional mode of transitioning from primary school to secondary school … was done in a way, as we all know, in a one-shot exam,” he said.
“The format also is one that doesn’t capture the abilities in a wide range that God has given our young people.”
He explained that students currently in Class 2, who will move into Class 3 in September, would begin the new process, while students now in Class 3 and entering Class 4 would complete the existing Common Entrance examination.
“Class 3 students will be in common entrance mode from Class 3, but it will be done over a two-year period.”
The broader assessment model was intended to be “more inclusive, fairer and broader” while reducing pressure on children and their families, he said.
But while officials outlined the mechanics of the transition, parents focused on whether the new system would work fairly in practice.
Questions were raised about how projects would be assigned after differing information emerged during the presentation.
Deputy Chief Education Officer the Reverend Stephen Scott clarified that schools would receive three projects and select two for students to complete.
“They will be given three projects. Three projects and they will choose two.”
Parents also sought clarity on whether raw scores or converted scores would be used for standardised testing.
The issue was still being finalised, Rev Scott said.
“We haven’t looked at that fully in terms of the converted or the raw score,” he said, noting that “there will be some weighting.”
Group work emerged as one of the major concerns of the evening.
One parent declared: “Most of us who have been to UWI, we know that you can be let down by group work.”
Acting Chief Education Officer Julia Beckles acknowledged those fears but said collaboration itself was a skill students needed to develop.
“They need to be taught how to do so,” parents were told.
“The whole idea of group etiquette, how you’re supposed to work, how you’re supposed to work cooperatively — those will be explained by our teachers so that we get the best of our children as they work together.”
Questions were also asked about whether parents would receive examples of completed projects and how competencies would be measured.
Rev Scott pointed to the use of detailed rubrics:
“It tells you specifically what you have to do in every area, and if you follow those, then you will accrue the marks for that specific aspect.”
Concerns were also raised about schools progressing through the syllabus at different rates before standardised tests are administered.
In response, officials said education officers would monitor curriculum delivery, and examinations would focus on common areas of the national syllabus.
Senior Education Officer Gline Price said: “What we try to do in developing these standardised tests is that we try to have a sample of virtually all the common areas that have been covered.”
Parents also questioned whether teachers would remain with the same cohort over the two-year period, given that transfers can occur during the school year.
Beckles said every effort would be made to maintain continuity:
“We are going to be trying to ensure that teachers stay and go right through with the students.Things will happen, and when they do we will ensure that we are able to put the correct interventions in place.”
As questions extended to homeschooled students, Rev Scott confirmed that their parents would have access to the same curriculum and assessment framework.
He said: “We have engaged on that, and they too will be accommodated so that students, whether they are homeschooled or whether they’re in schools, we are covering all of them.”
Parent advocate Paula-Anne Moore welcomed the ministry’s efforts to consult the public but questioned whether the new model would truly remove the stigma associated with secondary school placement.
“What is the primary goal and objective?” she asked.
“If we are maintaining an allocation to secondary schools based on grades, I would offer to you [that] if it could not be argued with some reasonable success that a rose by any other name still smells like a rose … how do we get away with that stigma association if certain grades mean that you go to certain schools?”
She also warned against replacing one form of pressure with another.
“We have to ensure that, in addition to widening the exposure of the child to these subjects, we don’t necessarily make it even more stressful because each child is going to think, ‘Oh my goodness, I got a test in Class 3, I got a test in Class 4, I have these assessments.’”
The Deputy Chief Education Officer said the purpose of the reform extended beyond determining placement.
“The goal here is to ensure that we are developing the various skills that our children must have to move forward. We just don’t want them to do an exam, get a mark, and that’s it.”
“You want to build their profiles, see where their strengths are, where their weaknesses are, so that as they manoeuvre from the primary to the secondary, those profiles go with them so that the teachers can assist at that level.”
The Alexandra School meeting was the first in a series of town halls being held across the island to explain the new transition model ahead of its September rollout. (LE)
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