This text is part of the special Private Education notebook
Collège Saint-Bernard, in Drummondville, has initiated a major educational reform, one of the most striking elements of which is the introduction of a non-numerical qualitative report card from the first year of primary school to the end of the 1er secondary cycle.
Dominic Guévin, the director general, admits hesitating to accept the interview. “We wouldn’t want the public to think that the unnumbered report card was our goal. In fact, it’s more the result of an educational reform that aims to reduce performance anxiety among young people, among other things. It’s a project that stems from a desire to reform pedagogy and reinvent the school, which we’ve been working on since 2017.”
In this college, which has nearly 1,200 students, 10% of whom have very serious learning difficulties, the transformation is profound. In addition to abolishing all special programs, all content and all assessment methods have been reviewed. Blackboards have been eliminated and the drawers in teachers’ desks have been closed. No more rows of desks: students sit in groups at tables.
Gone are also percentages and group averages: students are graded from 1 to 5, the first two levels corresponding to failures: (1) unobservable skill; (2) in the process of being acquired; (3) in development; (4) mastered; (5) in depth.
“Our students have a much better idea of their learning and much more satisfaction,” says François Yvon, the director of educational services. “Our surveys show us that our parents now choose us for our educational credibility and not just for the benevolence of the environment. For me, it’s my pat on the back.”
Mr. Guévin warns: we cannot establish a qualitative report card in a vacuum. “It works for us because it is part of a reform of pedagogy that was desired and enacted by our teaching staff, by parents, by the ministry and by our board of directors. It is a very long process.”
The pirouettes of Quebec
Christian Leblanc, director of secondary education services at the Fédération des établissements d’enseignement privé, notes a great desire for educational renewal among his members. He explains that all institutions are concerned about the burden of assessment, anxiety management and performance stress. “Everywhere, we are trying to assess less and assess better.”
The case of Collège Saint-Bernard is, however, unique. “A few schools have started to test the waters,” he says, “but no one has gone this far yet.”
This reflection is new and stems from an approach by François Yvon to Mr. Leblanc. “He wondered why private schools could not do a qualitative assessment.” Christian Leblanc did some checking, and there, surprise! Exactly like alternative public schools, private establishments have the right to take this path provided they obtain a ministerial exemption for a “special educational project”. It was this discovery that started the ball rolling.
However, Mr. Leblanc specifies, exemption or not, secondary level establishments must return to the single report card “with percentage and group average in 4e and 5e secondary. “It is necessary for the certification of studies and graduation.”
At Collège Saint-Bernard, the cohort currently in 2e Secondary school will be the first to begin this transition next year. “The reintroduction of percentage grading will be gradual,” explains Dominic Guévin. “It will be an educational opportunity for us to explain the meaning of the grade.”
Programmatic nonsense
André-Sébastien Aubin, professor in the Department of Education and Pedagogy at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), has always been surprised by the popular outcry that led to the forced reintroduction of the “single report card” with a percentage and group average in 2010.
“The numerical grading is not consistent with a program that is purely qualitative,” he emphasizes. Indeed, since the 2005 Pedagogical Renewal reform, the Quebec education system has moved from a lecture-based approach, which aims to transfer knowledge, to a skills-based approach, which is essentially qualitative. “Teachers are fully trained in the qualitative approach and are asked to translate that into quantitative.”
But, Aubin explains, the percentage mark gives a false sense of precision. “The margin of error is 8 to 10%. A child who gets 85% is probably no better [qu’un autre qui a] 81%. That’s a figment of the imagination.”
Several American states and most countries around the world evaluate their students qualitatively rather than quantitatively. In France, the standard is an evaluation out of 20. Quebec universities evaluate students out of 4.3. “The need to compare is real and necessary at the end of secondary school, but not at age 8,” says André-Sébastien Aubin. “The evaluation should be used to target students’ problems, not to compare them. It’s not because the report card is not numbered that there is no evaluation. We need to get that out of our heads.”
This content was produced by the Special Publications Team of Dutyrelevant to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part in it.