One of the requirements of homeschooling according to Charles is the obligation to send a form of yearly assessment at the end of the school year to ensure minimum standards of academic progress. Options include dated work samples, progress report, report cards, or standardized testing. Other options may be agreed upon with school officials.
Only ONE method of reporting is required. What you state here is not binding - you can use another method at the end of year if it suits your learning method better. Things often change during the school year and you may have found something that works better or decided you wanted to use a different form.
In April or May, as the school year begins to wrap up, take a look back at all the things your child has accomplished over the past 12 months. You might have kept a log book. Maybe you took notes on an app or your computer. Maybe you took loads of photos. Perhaps you saved every bit of paper work your child completed over the past year in a big folder. This will help you decide your reporting method.
Send your year end assessment in at the same time you send in your education plan for the following year.
What reporting method should I choose?
Dated work samples/Portfolio. This is the easiest method if you have saved a few samples from September. The basic idea is to show progress, so you will need one sample from the beginning of the year and one from the end of your school year in each of your major subjects: math, reading and writing, history/geography, science and language. Be sure the work samples are dated and have the child's name written on them. A "Portfolio" is NOT required. A portfolio implies that there are many samples from throughout the schoolyear. You should only send the minimal requirement of a sample from the beginning and a sample from the end of year.
Report cards: You can make up your own report card format based on the grades your child has earned or the mastery that your child has demonstrated: make it as fancy or plain as you wish. You could also use a homeschool reporting service or grades from online classes. Many paid curriculums for homeschoolers issue report cards that you can send in directly to the WPS. Even if you do not use graded lessons you can send a report card because you will have a good idea of where your child stands academically.
DO NOT send in multiple report cards during the year. Simply send in the final report card for June grades.
Progress report or narrative reports: A progress or narrative report is often used by families who do not grade their children. It can be a less clinical approach to report the activities of each homeschooling child. WPS want to see such key words as "made progress", "began at this point and ended at this point", "mastered these materials" or give specific examples of growth and mastery.
It can sometimes be difficult to know what the WPS want to see in a narrative report but the goal is again to show growth and mastery of each subject. See AHEM's website for an example. For more information on progress reports, check AHEM. AHEM recommends that you keep your progress report to a minimum, not adding any more than is required to show progress. Try to not "overreport".
Scope and Sequence: According to the WPS website, scope and sequence are an acceptable reporting method. See the pdf on their website under Homeschooling. Scope and sequence is a list of all the concepts, skills, and topics that your child has covered and the order in which they are introduced. If you are using a prepared curriculum, this is often the table of contents or an index.
Standardized testing. Parents are NOT obligated to use standardized testing of any kind (or any testing, for that matter). If you really want to see where your child may line up against others, there are many standardized testing options available, outside of schools. In addition, WPS do offer standardized testing. You must contact them several months ahead of time to arrange for this. You are NOT obligated to test your children in any way, especially with high pressure standarized testing in a classroom setting. WPS cannot require you to test your children and homeschoolers do not take the MCAS. AHEM has a whole page on standardized testing here.