In 2018, the school management did a review of the exam formats and determined that we should not have all the children take the same level of exams as there were often big level differences between pupils even within the same grade. One reason for this was the fact that we had children who entered our school at the age of 3 whereas others were beginning their pre-schooling at age 5. Naturally, a third year pupil would be more advanced than a first year pupil.

 

In order to address this issue, we began to give the pupils different levels of exams depending on the amount of schooling they had received. The pupil’s natural learning ability was also taken into consideration.

 

We made the formal announcement of this initiative in the 2018 graduation ceremony programme with the following statement:

 

' The periodical exams will be tailored to the individual needs of the child in each subject. The goal is to enhance the self confidence of the child by having exams which are neither too easy nor too challenging and requiring minimal intervention by the teacher. '

 

Pursuant to this goal, we made an appraisal of the exam formats and scoring and determined that we could still make further improvements. What we decided is explain in the lines below.

 

1) Levelling

 

Broadly speaking, our teachers rank their pupils for each exam subject as follows:

 

AVERAGE

ABOVE AVERAGE

ADVANCED

 

In the periodicals, the pupils will take exams according to their level in each subject.

 

The system works like this:

 

 

                                                   Average                               Above average                           Advanced

                                                exam level                                 exam level                              exam level

 

       1st periodical                          1                                                 2                                              3

 

      2nd periodical                          4                                                 5                                               6

 

      3rd periodical                          7                                                  8                                               9

 

      4th periodical                         10                                                11                                              12

 

 

A pupil deemed to be average in a given subject for all four periodicals will take levels 1,4,7 and 10 for that subject. Likewise, a pupil deemed to be above average in a given subject will take levels 2,5,8 and 11. 

 

We are approaching the time for the 3rd periodicals so the teachers will have already given levels to their pupils for each subject. 

 

The examination papers on the day will indicate the level of the exam in the top left hand corner. 

 

Parents, please note that your child likely has different abilities according to the subject so his or her levels will not be uniform throughout.

 

We encourage parents to consider the levels of their child in a given subject to be the key indicator of progress and not the evolution of their scores in the periodicals.

 

Furthermore, through these means, parents will know which subjects their children are doing best in and which subjects they may be struggling with.

 

It is important for the child’s confidence to know that they are making good progress even in single subject; a teacher’s upgrading from a level 7 in the 3rd periodical to a level 11 for the final periodical would be an illustration of this.

 

The teacher of your child will determine their individual subject levels according to two specific criteria, namely the child’s performance in class/online and their scores in previous periodical exams.

 

2) Exam scoring

 

Parents should not expect the exam scores of their children to keep improving throughout the year particularly as a child may have been upgraded to a higher and more difficult level. A score of 90 in a level 10 exam is not the equivalent of 90 in a level 12 exam.

 

We would like the parents to focus their attention not so much on the scores of their children but on their respective levels in each subject. Parents may wish to discuss their child’s levels with their teacher and agree to have more time devoted to the subject(s) the child may be lagging behind in.

 

3) Honours

 

At the end of the academic year, we traditionally have a graduation ceremony and a few of the pupils in Junior Prep and Senior Prep are awarded honours for their academic performance throughout the year.

 

We will continue to maintain a score of 90 to be worthy of honours and 95 for high honours. However, given that we have pupils taking different levels of exams, only those pupils taking level 12 exams for all subjects will be eligible for honours consideration.

 

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Richard Foster

LLC founder

March, 2021