1. Growing Success Overview
Revised August 2011

2. Purpose
Updates, clarifies, co-ordinates and consolidates the various aspects of assessment.
Achieve fairness, transparency, equity, and consistency across the province in the assessment, evaluation and reporting of student learning.
The new policy document supports the government’s three core priorities for education:
High levels of student achievement;
Reducing gaps in student achievement;
Increased public confidence in publicly funded education

3. The Seven Fundamental Principles
To ensure that assessment, evaluation, and reporting are valid and reliable; lead to the improvement of learning for all students; and that teachers use practices and procedures that:
are fair, transparent, and equitable for all students;
support all students, including those with special education needs, those who are learning the language of instruction (English or French), and those who are First Nation, Métis, or Inuit;
are carefully planned to relate to the curriculum expectations and learning goals and, as much as possible, to the interests, learning styles and preferences, needs, and experiences of all students;

4. The Seven Fundamental Principles
are communicated clearly to students and parents at the beginning of the school year or course and at other appropriate points throughout the school year or course;
are ongoing, varied in nature, and administered over a period of time to provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate the full range of their learning;
provide ongoing descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement; and
develop students’ self-assessment skills to enable them to assess their own learning, set specific goals, and plan next steps for their learning.

5. Growing Success Overview
This document supersedes:
a) The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9 to 12: Program Planning and Assessment, 2000
b) The Curriculum policy documents for Grades 1 to 12
b) Guide to the Provincial Report Card, Grades 1–8, 1998
c) Guide to the Provincial Report Card, Grades 9–12, 1999;
d) Memorandum dated September 5, 2000: “Changes in Reporting the Strands of Mathematics on the Elementary Report Card”;
e) Directors’ Memorandum dated May 24, 2006: “Revision to Provincial Report Card, Grades 9–12: The Expansion of Eligible Courses Recognized as Compulsory for the OSSD”;
f) Memorandum, dated June 22, 2006: “Release of Revised Grades 1–8, Language, 2006, Curriculum Policy Document”
The achievement charts in all current curriculum policy documents remain in effect.

6. Growing Success Overview
For Grades 1 to 6, student achievement of the overall curriculum expectations will be reported using letter grades.
For Grades 7 to 12, a student’s achievement of the overall curriculum expectations will be reported using percentage marks.

7. Special Education Highlights
The IEP specifies whether the student requires:
accommodations only; or
modified learning expectations, with the possibility of accommodations; or
an alternative program, not derived from the curriculum expectations for a subject/grade or a course.

8. Special Education Highlights
Teachers working with students who have special education needs use assessment and evaluation strategies to:
specify and verify the student’s needs;
support accurate decisions about the student’s program;
support a range of other decisions, such as those relating to referrals, screening, classification, instructional planning, and determining next steps;
help determine particular interventions that may be necessary to enable the student to demonstrate achievement.

9. Key Messages for Students and Parents
Assessment is the process of gathering information that accurately reflects how well a student is achieving the curriculum expectations in a subject or course.
The primary purpose of assessment is to improve student learning.
Three processes of assessment:
Establish where learners are in their learning
Establish where learners are going
Establish what needs to be done to get them there

10. Key Messages for Students and Parents
Completing all assessment tasks, not just summative assessment tasks, is critical for student success as it helps students to see what they need to improve on and helps their teachers to help them improve.
Students need to participate in the development of learning goals, and the steps necessary to achieve those goals.
Students need to use the descriptive feedback, provided by teachers during assessment for learning tasks, to improve their learning.
 Students will learning how to help one another by providing peer assessing using success criteria.

11. Key Messages for Students and Parents
Key Messages for Parents
Assessment As Learning helps their child become active and engaged in their learning.
Key Messages for Students
The information gathered is used by students to provide feedback to other students (peer assessment), monitor their own progress towards achieving their learning goals (self-assessment), make adjustments in their learning approaches, reflect on their learning, and set individual goals for learning.

12. Key Messages for students and parents
They should have knowledge of all this information and should know the following:
How their children will be evaluated in their courses.
How the students’ marks will be determined.
Consistency in assessment and evaluation practices from class to class within a school.

13. The Achievement Charts
Teachers will ensure that student learning is assessed and evaluated in a balanced manner with respect to the four categories.
The importance accorded to each of the four categories in assessment and evaluation should reflect the emphasis accorded to them in the curriculum expectations.

14. Learning Skills & Work Habits
The development of learning skills and work habits is an integral part of a student’s learning.
To the extent possible, however, the evaluation of learning skills and work habits should not be considered in the determination of a student’s grades unless the skills form part of the curriculum expectations (examples: Health & Physical Education includes Learning Skills expectations and the Mathematics curriculum includes Mathematics process expectations) – see pg. 10.
Learning Skills: Responsibility, Organization, Independent Work, Collaboration, Initiative, Self-Regulation.
Teachers will use the following letter symbols to report on students’ development of the six learning skills and work habits: E – Excellent, G – Good, S – Satisfactory, N – Needs Improvement

15. Continuous Communication
In addition to reports mandated by ministry policy, communication with parents and students about student achievement should be continuous throughout the year, by means such as parent-teacher or parent-student-teacher conferences, portfolios of student work, student-led conferences, interviews, phone calls, checklists and informal reports.
Communication about student achievement should be designed to provide detailed information that will encourage students to set goals for learning, help teachers to establish plans for teaching, and assist parents in supporting learning at home.