Assessment

Profile

Beijing World Youth Academy (BWYA) is an independent, international, day school located in Beijing. Founded in 2001 with a small cohort of students studying the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, it has now grown into a large K-12 school with over 1100 students. BWYA has developed a reputation for academic excellence coupled with a strong sense of community. We educate students with English and Chinese as the main language of instruction, as well as with a commitment to the Chinese government education policies for national students. BWYA is authorised with International Baccalaureate Organisation (IB), Cambridge International Examinations (CIE), and accredited by Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). The school is also a member of Association of China and Mongolia International Schools (ACAMIS) and East Asia Regional Council of Schools (EARCOS).

Mission

Beijing World Youth Academy strives to provide members of our community excellent learning opportunities that incorporate critical investigation, exposure to different cultural perspectives and assessment against objective criteria. Our mission is to develop principled, open-minded thinkers who are capable of integrating with diverse international communities and who are empowered to shape their environs for the improvement of quality of life for themselves and others.

Values

As a school community, these are our values:

Compassion: We respect and empathise with the rights, opinions, culture and feelings of others.
Trust: We believe that honesty, integrity and reliability in ourselves and others, forms the cornerstone of our community.
Solidarity: We value harmony and oneness while recognising the individuality of each person in our community.
Collaboration: We recognise that the development of the student is the shared responsibility between the student, the family and the school.

Schoolwide Learner Outcomes

We have adopted the International Baccalaureate ® (IB) Learner Profile, which describes a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities that go beyond academic success, as our Schoolwide Learning Outcomes as part of our commitment to help all members of the school community learn to respect themselves, others and the world around them.

As learners we strive to be:

Inquirers: We nurture our curiosity, developing skills for inquiry and research. We know how to learn independently and with others. We learn with enthusiasm and sustain our love of learning throughout life.
Knowledgeable: We develop and use conceptual understanding, exploring knowledge across a range of disciplines. We engage with issues and ideas that have local and global significance.
Thinkers: We use critical and creative thinking skills to analyse and take responsible action on complex problems. We exercise initiative in making reasoned, ethical decisions.
Communicators: We express ourselves confidently and creatively in more than one language and in many ways. We collaborate effectively, listening carefully to the perspectives of other individuals and groups.
Principled: We act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness and justice, and with respect for the dignity and rights of people everywhere. We take responsibility for our actions and their consequences.
Open-minded: We critically appreciate our own cultures and personal histories, as well as the values and traditions of others. We seek and evaluate a range of points of view, and we are willing to grow from the experience.
Caring: We show empathy, compassion and respect. We have a commitment to service, and we act to make a positive difference in the lives of others and in the world around us.
Risk-takers: We approach uncertainty with forethought and determination; we work independently and cooperatively to explore new ideas and innovative strategies. We are resourceful and resilient in the face of challenges and change.
Balanced: We understand the importance of balancing different aspects of our lives — intellectual, physical, and emotional — to achieve well-being for ourselves and others. We recognise our interdependence with other people and with the world in which we live.
Reflective: We thoughtfully consider the world and our own ideas and experience. We work to understand our strengths and weaknesses in order to support our learning and personal development.

Rationale

Beijing World Youth Academy views student assessment as integral to student learning, lesson planning and teaching.

We treat assessment as a service to students in that assessment allows temporal tracking of student progress. As a result, assessment helps students to discover their strengths and weaknesses, set appropriate goals and identify suitable pathways to success.

Assessment can also help teachers identify teaching and learning strategies that are effective for individual students, and make adjustments as necessary. Assessment also allows teachers to identify foundations from which to begin teaching, make appropriate adjustments to the pace and depth of their courses, and provide accurate information about our students to other institutions, such as universities to which they apply.

The purpose of this document is to:

Provide general principles to be adhered to when assessing student work.
Distinguish between various forms of assessment.
Explain the school’s policy on reporting student achievement data.
Outline the structure of support provided to students during assessments.
Outline test and exam procedures.
Identify and explain key terms used in this document.

Guiding Principles

Assessment is transparent

Task expectations and information as to how tasks are to be assessed are clearly communicated to students via instructions, rubrics or assessment criteria.
Assessments are to reflect the quality of work submitted

Especially for summative assessments, we remain student-blind during assessment to ensure that assessment measures reflect the quality of work submitted and are not influenced by unrelated, contextual factors.
Assessment is accurate and objective

We assess student work in a way that is fair, reproducible and based on the student's work. Considerations that are not apposite to the quality of the student's work, such as late submission, academic misconduct, and student behaviour issues are not reflected in grades awarded. (See academic integrity policy for appropriate responses to plagiarism or other instances of academic misconduct.)
Assessments are regular and feedback is timely

We assess student work regularly and provide timely feedback in order to inform reflection and stimulate learning, and to allow teachers to be more sensitive and responsive to student needs.

Policy and Implementation

General expectations of stakeholders

While assessment practices maybe different between programmes, the following expectations are applicable across the whole school.

Students

Students are expected to:

be fully prepared for assessment activities.
submit assessment tasks on time.
ensure their submitted work is their own, with thoughts and ideas of others clearly identified and referenced.
ensure their submitted work is received by the teacher.
take pride in their work.

Teachers

Teachers are expected to:

clearly identify the requirements for each assessment task, including due dates and task specific information on how the task will be assessed, such as assessment criteria or rubrics.
ensure that how student work is assessed remains transparent to students and guardians by providing rubrics, weights, criteria and grade descriptors, for example.
provide adequate time for students to complete any each assessment task.
incorporate a draft stage for larger or research-based tasks so that students have the opportunity to receive feedback before the final task is due.
provide adequate access to materials necessary for the successful completion of assessment tasks.
assess tasks within ten days of submission and provide appropriate feedback.
keep records of assessment tasks submitted by students (both formative and summative).
use assessment data to inform their teaching.
design assessments that stimulate students to use higher order cognitive skills, including synthesis, reflection, evaluation and critical thinking.
use a variety of assessment types and tools so that students may employ different learning styles and develop a broad range of skills and knowledge.
arrange for sample moderation if more than one teacher is assessing the same task to ensure that assessment remains fair, accurate and objective.
report assessment concerns to programme coordinators or section principals.
develop understanding and familiarity with the meaning and interpretation of grades in their programmes and subject groups.

Guardians

Guardians are expected to provide constructive encouragement and support to their children while not compromising the authenticity of student work.

Non assessment of student work

In order for assessment to be fair and accurate, students do not receive a grade for:

work that is not submitted.
work that, after investigation as outlined in our academic integrity policy, does not appear to be the authentic work of the student.

If students submit work after a deadline, they also risk not being awarded a grade. Whether student work is accepted in such cases depends on whether teachers are left with sufficient time to assess the student work and whether extra time gives students an unfair advantage over other students.

Summative and formative assessment

Beijing World Youth Academy has developed a distinction between formative and summative assessment along the following lines.

Summative assessment

The purpose is for students to demonstrate knowledge and skills gained at a point in time.

Students are expected to already have the knowledge and skill set being assessed at the start of the activity. Assessment is carried out in order to record an accurate and comparable measure of student knowledge and skills at a point in time
Performance is measured at a point in time.

Grades and assessment results contribute to the student's academic of student performance are collecte contribute to a timeline of performance measures that inform students (and us, and universities) about their progress and development.
Assessment is student-blind.

Work is strictly assessed against the same criteria, and awarded grades have the same meaning for all students.
Assessment is individual.

Students are assessed on their own work or, if they have worked in collaboration with others, only on their own, personal contribution towards the work.
Tasks are assessed by teachers.

Assessment of tasks is carried out by teachers or examiners.

Formative assessment

The purpose is for students to gain knowledge or skills by completing the task.

Activities are designed so that students can gain knowledge or skill sets during the activity that they did not necessarily have before the activity. (In other words, the activity is designed as a means of teaching and learning.) Activity feedback provides actionable information that can direct students towards further improvement.
It is fine fro students to "fail".

There are minimal social and academic consequences to perceived failure or poor performance in the task. Students are encouraged to take risks to personalise and shape the knowledge or skills focused on in the task. Assessment grades or feedback have a minor or no effect on formal recorded grades. An environment in which students are expected to make – and learn from – mistakes is established.
Teachers may use personalised criteria to assess student work.

Formative assessment gives us the freedom to differentiate between students by assigning different, personalised goals and assessment criteria. Stronger students might be given more difficult tasks; students experiencing language difficulties may be given additional language support, etc.
Suitable for collaborative work.

Students may be assigned to groups to develop social, collaborative and communication skills. Collected data and results may be shared with other groups and groups may all contribute to a greater product.
Suitable for self and peer assessment.

Activities can be designed to develop students' reflective skills through self-assessment. Peer assessment and constructive criticism and feedback from other students may be incorporated into the tasks.

Because so much overlap is possible in terms of the above items, we do not see the distinction between summative and formative assessment as binary but rather two ends of a spectrum.

Grades

In alignment with the grades awarded by IB, we award symbol grades from 1 (very poor) to 7 (excellent) in our implementations of IB programmes at our school. Detailed programme and subject group specific interpretations of grades, as published by IB, are used.