«Your own progress counts when learning»
Our school - which consists of a single class - is attended by 17 children and young people aged 6 to 15. This makes grades a poor assessment tool. They do not capture the learning level of the individual child, but rather establish a ranking within the class.
In our case, this would be even more absurd. In 2015, we submitted an application to the cantonal education department for an extended grade-free assessment. The aim of this is to provide children with optimal learning support through various forms of feedback. To achieve this, we are doing away with grades altogether.
Instead of the annual report, pupils receive an assessment report that describes their subject-specific and interdisciplinary competences. We try to summarise their level of competence in just a few sentences. This is time-consuming, but I am certain that words are better than a grade. If I write that a pupil can «read simple texts fluently», this can be verified. Sure, you can discuss what a simple text is - while a five in German says nothing about how well the pupil reads.
To enable training companies to assess whether young people are up to the demands of vocational school, we also issue learners with a skills profile at the end of year eight. It is based on the template provided by Anforderungsprofile.ch, an initiative of employers and vocational experts from practice and school. So far, we have never had the experience that our students were at a disadvantage when choosing a career because they did not have a certificate grade.
Words are a better way of capturing a student's competences than a grade.
At the time, parents were in favour of our decision not to use grades. We took a lot of time to explain everything to them. Some expressed concern that they would not know where their child stood at school without grades. So we improved and expanded our feedback system.
Today, parents are well informed about their children's learning. On the one hand, they receive regular feedback via the learning booklet, in which the children record their learning goals and feedback from us teachers. On the other hand, parents can view their child's portfolio at the end of the year, which includes particularly successful work as well as assessments from us teachers.
I have found the children to be more motivated since we stopped giving grades. Those who come to us from other schools sometimes say: I can't do that! Bad grades have often cemented this conviction to such an extent that some children initially refuse to do maths or even sing because they «can't do it». We try to counteract this and make them realise that what counts most in learning is their own progress.
