Assessment & Evaluation Procedures

Students will be evaluated based on the curriculum expectations identified through the Ontario Curriculum policy documents for the courses in which they are enrolled.  These expectations describe the knowledge and skills students are expected to develop and demonstrate in their classwork, on tests, and in various other activities on which their achievement is assessed and evaluated.

There are two sets of curriculum expectations – overall expectations and specific expectations. The overall expectations describe in general terms the knowledge and skills that students are expected to demonstrate by the end of each grade or course. The specific expectations describe the expected knowledge and skills in greater detail. Taken together, the overall and specific expectations represent the mandated curriculum – the content standards.

The performance standards are outlined in the achievement chart that appears in the secondary curriculum document for every subject or discipline. The achievement chart for each subject/discipline is a standard province-wide guide and is to be used by all teachers as a framework within which to assess and evaluate student achievement of the expectations in the particular subject or discipline. It enables teachers to make consistent judgements about the quality of student learning based on clear performance standards and on a body of evidence collected over time. It also provides teachers with a foundation for developing clear and specific feedback for students and parents.

Evaluation in each course is based on the level of achievement that the student demonstrates based on the overall expectations of a course.  Evidence of student achievement for evaluation is collected over time based on the triangulation of data from three different sources – observations, conversations, and student products.

Seventy percent (70%) of the evaluation is based on daily classroom work and will be determined through a variety of methods, such as ongoing class conversations, demonstrations, teacher observations, projects and classroom tests and quizzes. 

Teachers will use “Assessment for Learning” and “Assessment as Learning” practices to help students identify where they are in relation to the learning goals and what next steps they need to take to achieve the goals.  

This ongoing feedback will help prepare students for “Assessment of Learning”, which is the process of collecting and interpreting evidence for the purpose of summarizing learning at a given point in time, to make judgments about the quality of student learning on the basis of established criteria, and to assign a value to represent that quality. 

Thirty percent (30%) of the evaluation occurs at or near the end of the course.  This evaluation will be based on evidence often from a combination of one or more performance tasks, writing tasks or other methods of evaluation suitable to the course expectations. This final evaluation allows the student the opportunity to demonstrate comprehensive achievement of the overall expectations of the course. 

For more information about assessment and evaluation, please see the RCDSB Administrative Procedure 360 - Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting.