Teachers use multiple sources of information to determine your child’s progress. A shared understanding of the language of assessment and student reporting will keep the lines of communication between home and school open.

· Assessment is the process of collecting information on student achievement and performance.

· Evaluation entails making decisions about the quality, value or worth of a response to provide descriptive feedback and marks.

· The teacher’s professional judgment is the best indicator of how your child is doing in school. Research clearly shows that this judgment of student progress is a much stronger predictor of future success than performance on single large-scale examinations, such as provincial achievement tests.

· Your child is more than a grade or a number. Assessments should reflect the variety of skills, knowledge and abilities that support the development of the whole child to be a creative and critical thinker and learner, to develop a love for learning and an appreciation for the arts, and to learn healthy lifestyles.

· Your child has a unique learning style that cannot be captured on a single assessment.

· Good classroom assessments should improve teaching and learning by motivating students to learn better, helping teachers make important instructional decisions and involving students meaningfully in setting goals for their learning.

· Good assessment and reporting is not about ranking and sorting students.

· Effective student reporting honours the many ways that your child learns and can include oral and written reports, written tests, journals and portfolios, student work such as projects, experiments and labs, and performances.

· Parents have the right and responsibility to ask questions about how their children are doing in school. These questions can include the following: How is my child being assessed? Does my child know what is expected? Does my child understand how classroom work is assessed? How are test results used? What support can I provide at home or at school?

Parenting through the School Years—A Guide for Parents of K–12 Students, Alberta Teachers’ Association, 2006