ASSESSMENT

Welcome to a new session and I hope you are ready for the challenges ahead. As the new students arrive in your class, I hope you have done a good assessment of them during the holiday. I assume that you have conducted an academic handover session with the previous class teacher and you have created action plans based on the information from the teacher. This is an invaluable assessment tool and you will really need this information to prepare you for the task ahead. Nevertheless, you cannot totally rely on the contents of the academic handover. Though it shows you the present level of performance of each student, yet I believe that miracles do happen during the holiday and as such you will need to conduct in-moment assessment of the students as they arrive. The PLOP document may fail to capture some holiday improvements or decrease as the case may be.

You must set out to observe them and quickly find out their skill level so as to know how to tailor your lesson. Remember that children don’t learn the same way, at the same rate and our pacing must vary depending on the students we have. So I encourage you to regularly check for understanding as you teach. Don’t wait for till the end of the lesson before you start evaluating student understanding or confusion. To wait till the end is too late. You need to ask questions, check for understanding, observe body language as you teach and use the data derived to improve how you are teaching. If you truly listen, students are always talking even when it is nonverbal. Don’t be too content driven that you ignore the feedback of your students. Always remember that if they don’t learn it, that simply means we haven’t taught it.

Once again I welcome you to a great session and I look forward to working with you as we progress.