Less “cramming”, less “race for marks”, more time to learn: Quebec schools have undertaken a small revolution by eliminating traditional exams and numerical marks, to prioritize student learning .
The end-of-year ministerial exams and the three numbered reports remain compulsory, in accordance with the Public Education Act, but the rest of the time, these schools seek first to give meaning to education, without the stress to have “the best grades”.
“We wanted to imagine our dream school, as if we had no constraints and could shovel clouds as much as we wanted! said with a smile Jessika Valence, director of educational services at the Saint-Nom-de-Marie boarding school (PSNM), a private school of 1,300 students located in Outremont.
This pedagogue set up this program called Flex in 2019-2020, after analyzing the “best practices” of evaluation in the world, from Helsinki to Boston, as part of her doctorate in education.
His conclusion: the Quebec school devotes “too much effort to preparing for the ministry exams”. After two years of reflection and consultation, Jessika Valence and her team came up with a model that “comes completely outside the traditional school framework”. Finished the numerical marks (except for the obligatory bulletins) and the examinations such as one knows them (except for the ministerial tests).
This shift in evaluation is totally rooted in reality and is producing results, notes Jessika Valence. She cites as an example the prestigious private school Phillips Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire, where there is no traditional examination, from primary to college. “The first exam that students take is to enter university. And they succeed: several are admitted to Harvard University. »
The Superior Council of Education went in the same direction in the report Evaluate to make it really matterpublished in 2018. This group of experts recommended a vast evaluation reform aimed at eliminating the numbered ballots in primary school and dropping the group average, which fuel a “logic of competition” between pupils.
No to brainwashing
The report was shelved by the Minister of Education as soon as it was published, but schools are nevertheless drawing inspiration from it in the hope of better serving students. About a hundred young people out of the 1,300 at the Saint-Nom-de-Marie boarding school follow the Flex program. Students work in small groups, at their own pace, on two or three-week projects that cover all subjects (French, mathematics, history, etc.).
Frequent meetings with teachers allow them to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Young people leave traces of their learning process in a diary, then in a portfolio. The goal: to reduce performance anxiety, but above all, to give meaning to learning. “Learning for real”, not just stuffing your head.
The students seem to like the program. Judith Gervais Luomala, arrived at the PSNM in 3e secondary, wrote in her journal: “In secondary 1 and 2, I always wanted to reach the highest level, and I succeeded most of the time, but I now realize that it is not much use reach that level if I don’t understand what I’m doing right. […] I will now try my best to aim for my 100%, not that of others, and understand my learning rather than carrying out tasks with an empty mind. »
learning first
The Collège Mont-Notre-Dame, a private school for girls in Sherbrooke, also launched a project on evaluation in the wake of the publication of the report of the Superior Council of Education in 2018.
“We had a sense of urgency. We said to ourselves: “When are we going to stop compiling simple notes that make our students stressed and unengaged?” We had the impression of spending hours correcting, that the students looked at the note and put their copy aside, ”says Cinthya Gauthier, director of educational services at Mont-Notre-Dame.
“We even wondered why we were evaluating and for whom we were evaluating. For the parents, for the ministry, for the administration, for the students, for the teachers? We realized that the assessment had to be at the service of learning, ”says Nathalie Arès, educational adviser and French teacher at the same establishment.
There are no more grades in this school, apart from the ministerial tests and the three report cards required by the Ministry of Education. All the students and all the teachers adhered to this new philosophy. “It allows me to better understand the material. It’s not just rote,” explains Marwa, a 3-year-olde secondary.
To produce numbered report cards, teachers award grades based on the “traces” left by students throughout their learning. Unlike traditional exams on a fixed date, this evaluation method gives “the right to make mistakes”, underlines Nathalie Arès.
“The student has the right to make mistakes and to correct himself. I really feel like I’m helping students learn. It took us three years to put everything in place, and I’m sure that if we hadn’t taken those three years, we wouldn’t have made it. You have to go there slowly. And that requires the professional judgment of teachers. I wouldn’t go back.»
The two private schools that have implemented this method of assessment have observed that the results of the pupils are comparable to those of previous years. No dramatic rise or fall in averages. However, the pleasure of learning seems more marked.