A different way to give marks

In la Sínia, students only recieve a formal report with marks at the end of the year. However, during the rest of the year, parents are also informed of their sons' evolution, but in a different way. 

They recieve three letters at the end of each one of the terms. 

This letter, which normally is adressed to the student and not to the parents, is a personalized comment that the tutor does for each student. But this comments are always related with a self-assessment that the students do previously. This means that students have a self-assessment which regards a wide variety of aspects:

- Comments about projects

- Personal habits

- Attitudes

- Opinions

- Purpose of improvement

Then, the teacher writes a personalized letter commenting what the student has said in the self-assessment. The teacher can write to the student in a positive way, for example: "As you have said, you've done a big effort to improve your handwriting, you must continue in that way!". Sometimes, the teacher has to be critical and make the student think about his/her self-assessment: "You have said that your attitude during the Five Senses project was fantastic, but I can remember that you were annoying your partners during the sight and the smell activities. It does not mean that you were in a right attitude, and I'm sure you know it." 

When I noticed about this way to inform parents, I instantly realized that it was amazing. On the one hand, the students can do a self-assessment and they can get a feedback of it, which is not normally done in other schools: the self-assessments are normally done by the students, but they can't see the use of it. In this case, teachers answer to the self-assessment of the students in order to comment the most relevant aspects.

On the other hand, parents are informed more specifically, because they can see their sons' self-assessment as well as the teachers' comments. I think this is a good way to let parents know better the way that the children are learning, and what teachers think of them. 

Finally, I also have considered that this kind of assessment promotes sincerity and honesty. Students know that they are going to recieve a feedback, so they prefere to be sincere with theirselves in their self-assessments. This causes the students' real reflection about their learning process: they are really self-assessing their attitudes, their acts and their relations with others. 

That's why I became amazed when the head teacher explained me this assessment strategy. She also told me that it requires a really hard work for teachers: analize the self-assessment of all the students three times a year and write a personalized letter and, apart from that, they also have to do a final report at the end of the year. 

Anyway, I think that this kind of assessment is more useful and has more value. The teachers' work is admirable, and the real reflection that students do about their learning process is also completely amazing!