Sluijsmans compares it to swimming lessons: you practice the breaststroke until you are ready for your A diploma. Then you take the exam and the flags go out. According to her, there is an increasing demand from schools for this learning method. “But change is also difficult, all teachers have to join in. It’s a different way of teaching and everyone grew up with report marks and Cito scores, you didn’t just change a system like that.”
Numbers have an impact
The first test is often given in group 3 of primary school. “A distinction is immediately made there: you are a weak student, you are a strong student,” says Sluijsmans. “That has an impact on the child and on the parents. I am convinced that children should be given the opportunity to reach the level they are capable of without being judged with a grade.”
Cito also sees this development. Two years ago, they replaced the figures of the student reports with graphic shapes, bar charts and lines, in order to indicate the level achieved in the core skills of Dutch, English, arithmetic/mathematics, Corine Theuns of Cito says.
“Schools can decide for themselves whether they want to use this in their communication to students, parents and carers,” says Theuns. She says that Cito is now working on a new development with a focus on growth and a broader view of the student. “In addition to the current core skills, attention is also paid to social-emotional functioning and study attitude. These reports also contain information in graphic form.”
Not always more reports
According to Stan Termeer of the Secondary Education Council, there is a lot of freedom in organizing education and therefore also in how a school tests. “Schools can do this according to their own insight and vision. The best-known way is with a mark between 0 and 10, but there are also schools that apply other methods, such as formative testing.”
In addition, according to Termeer, there are schools that look at a student at an individual level and adjust goals accordingly and assess tests accordingly. “There are different forms and testing differently than the standard report grades is not new, I do have the idea that there is increasing interest in it.”
Discussion makes sense
Schools should think carefully before abolishing interim tests and grades, says education expert Amber Walraven of Radboud University. She trains teachers and does a lot of research in education. “If reports have colors and green stands for all numbers higher than a 6, and you do not change anything in your didactics or action, then you still do not work formatively and you still link a decision to a result. While formative action means that there is nothing depends on you learning from making mistakes until you master it. To possibly eventually make a test, which is graded with a color or number.”
It requires a lot of overview from a teacher, who has to ask different questions in a lesson, look at the students differently. “Not all schools really apply this method well. But there is a movement and a discussion about how we can improve final exams and final tests is always useful.”
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