Holistic assessment

[lhtltph.017294gmail.017294com]

Went my DS's school briefing on holistic assessment for P1 last nite. While the objective of HA is to make learning less stressful with no exam. I found myself more stressed! Our kids are expected to be all rounders! For example english, the weighting will be on reading, writing, show and tell, penmanship.. My DS got his first reading assessed yesterday. Was happy to see he was rated as independent reader with only one mistake- pronounced- screamed without \"ed\". However. He was also assessed on the fluency and expression- assessed as \"read in a monotonus voice\" . I began to wonder is HA really making learning less stressful. For those with children who went through HA, any advice ? Still need to prepare the same for his ML !

[silverhorse]

Ly:

Went my DS's school briefing on holistic assessment for P1 last nite. While the objective of HA is to make learning less stressful with no exam. I found myself more stressed! Our kids are expected to be all rounders! For example english, the weighting will be on reading, writing, show and tell, penmanship.. My DS got his first reading assessed yesterday. Was happy to see he was rated as independent reader with only one mistake- pronounced- screamed without \"ed\". However. He was also assessed on the fluency and expression- assessed as \"read in a monotonus voice\" . I began to wonder is HA really making learning less stressful. For those with children who went through HA, any advice ? Still need to prepare the same for his ML !

Ly,
My DS2 will be in P1 next year and heard the syllabus is gonna be HA.
DS1 did not go through this at all. My nephews are in HA since P1 and my sis says its good. But honestly, I think parents will be ones who have to do more coaching etc?
I spoke to ex teachers from my DS1 school. They said competent teachers are able to carry out HA syllabus. Not all teachers are trained and to assess each child correctly. So, I'm pretty worried about HA too.

[Champion]

http://www.primaryeducation.sg/holistic-development-of-your-child/holistic-assessment/


MOE had been partnering 16 primary schools, the PERI Holistic Assessment Prototype (or HAPpe) schools, to plan and prototype Holistic Assessment models and strategies at Primary 1 and Primary 2, since July 2009. These 16 schools shared their experiences and showcased their schools’ practices and assessment resources to other primary schools at the PERI Holistic Assessment Seminar for school leaders and teachers on 13 July 2010.

In 2011, these 16 schools extended their implementation to Pri 3 and 67 Phase 1 schools came on board implementing HA at Pri 1. All these schools have focused their efforts on building children’s confidence and desire to learn by using a range of appropriate assessment modes and bite-sized forms of assessment for richer feedback on learning. The remaining schools have committed themselves to implementing HA by 2013.

MOE also launched a Holistic Assessment Website for teachers. The website houses information, exemplars, resources, strategies and tools for the planning and implementation of Holistic Assessment in the primary schools. It also allows teachers to exchange ideas on Holistic Assessment.

[janet88]

Ly:

Went my DS's school briefing on holistic assessment for P1 last nite. While the objective of HA is to make learning less stressful with no exam. I found myself more stressed! Our kids are expected to be all rounders!

This holistic thing is stressful. Our kids are expected to be able to be all rounders at all times...tests every 10 weeks is not my idea of holistic :faint:
I almost killed myself (and my daughter) last year when she was in P1. No better this year...she is having her Chinese test 2moro and I combed through all the assessment books I have to revise whatever sections will be tested. Hanyu pinyin, cloze passage, sentence rearrangement, comprehension...the others I can't figure out what they are.
Sorry for ranting :rant: ...just very stressed.

[Pen88n]

I personally do not agree that holistic assessment is more stressful. I think it is dependent on how parents and kids handle it.


To me, there is no preparation for DD for her holistic assessments throughout her P1 and even now P2 year. She has been exposed to reading, and we read to her every night. If you make an attempt to read in an interesting manner to the kid, the kid will learn to read in that manner so reading task is never an issue. Similarly, show and tell is just another interesting way of telling story for DD - she comes up with her own sentences on what she is going to tell for that topic, and she presents it to us (entertainment for the family). We give her some feedback on how that can be improved, and that will be done in less than an hour.

As for the topical tests, the school has covered the topic in the workbooks, and in addition, they have given the kids some revision paper to prepare for the tests. Nothing done on our part. For P1, I only gave DD some top school papers for her practice for SA2. I gave away a stack of CA / SA papers (given by friend) as DD only did a paper or two for each subject just to get a feel of what to expect.

I believe if the kid is up to date and consistent performance with their homework, there should not be any issues with lower primary assessment. Treat it like a normal daily assignment and both the kids and parents should be less stressed. No point getting stressed so early in the education road - the journey is just too long to expose the kids to such pressure.

[silverhorse]

janet_lee88:

Ly:

Went my DS's school briefing on holistic assessment for P1 last nite. While the objective of HA is to make learning less stressful with no exam. I found myself more stressed! Our kids are expected to be all rounders!

This holistic thing is stressful. Our kids are expected to be able to be all rounders at all times...tests every 10 weeks is not my idea of holistic :faint:
I almost killed myself (and my daughter) last year when she was in P1. No better this year...she is having her Chinese test 2moro and I combed through all the assessment books I have to revise whatever sections will be tested. Hanyu pinyin, cloze passage, sentence rearrangement, comprehension...the others I can't figure out what they are.
Sorry for ranting :rant: ...just very stressed.

Oh my..... I can understand how you feel Janet....
It'll be my turn next year for DS2.

[ahxuan.031873ymail.031873com]

Hi,

Need advice here. What’s the difference between this Holistic Assessment and the former Continuous Assessment/Semester Assessment? Thanks.

[WriteCraft Learning]

nz:

Hi,

Need advice here. What's the difference between this Holistic Assessment and the former Continuous Assessment/Semester Assessment? Thanks.

Hi nz,

Holistic Assessment simply means that the child is assessed in various areas, such as character, physical, art, music, reading, speaking etc... not just in 1 written exam/test.

According to MOE, Holistic Assessment is implemented with a purpose to \"shift the focus of assessment towards building pupils’ confidence and desire to learn in both the academic and non-academic areas.\"

In the past, children's performance in schools were being assessed by 1 CA or SA grade for the entire term/semester.

Now, with this holistic assessment, kids are given the so-called 'bite-sized' assessments throughout the term. Eg. Show-and-Tell (to assess their confidence, speaking, presentation skills), sight words recognition/reading tests (to assess their reading competencies), Short writing tasks (to assess their writing skills), Topical Test after each unit (to assess their understanding of the topics) etc.

All these little marks are then added together to form the final grade for your child, instead of having just 1 CA or SA paper to determine the final grade.

Besides these, my kids' teachers also gave out Holistic Reports at the end of each term. This report shows how they have progressed, in areas such as leadership, art, music, character development etc... I think most schools should have such holistic report books by now.

More info here:
http://parents-in-education.moe.gov.sg/ ... assessment

[ahxuan.031873ymail.031873com]

Thanks for your info.