MYP Assessment

A guide to MYP Assessment processes at WIS

This is a guide to MYP assessment for Year 7 students and parents starting August 2020

The single most important aim of assessment is to support and encourage student learning. Teachers constantly gather and analyse information on student’s achievement and provide feedback to help them grow.

To be effective, students should be evaluating their own progress using self-assessment and reflection. In doing so, they will develop more effective critical and thinking skills.

MYP Assessment Criteria

All MYP subjects have four assessment criteria as shown in the table (A to D) below and are applicable for Years 7-9 programme. Assessment tasks are set to target these assessment criteria.

	A	B	C	D
Language and Literature	Analysing	Organizing	Producing text	Using language
Language Acquisition	Comprehending spoken and visual text	Comprehending written and visual text	Communicating	Using language
Individuals and Societies	Knowing and understanding	Investigating	Communicating	Thinking critically
Sciences	Knowing and understanding	Inquiring and designing	Processing and Evaluating	Reflecting on the impacts of science
Mathematics	Knowing and understanding	Investigating patterns	Communicating	Applying mathematics in real-world contexts
Arts	Knowing and understanding	Developing skills	Thinking creatively	Responding
Physical and Health Education	Knowing and understanding	Planning for performance	Applying and performing	Reflecting and improving performance
Design	Inquiring and analysing	Developing ideas	Creating the solution	Evacuating
MYP Projects	Investigating	Planning	Taking action	Reflecting
Interdisciplinary	Disciplinary grounding	Synthesizing and applying	Communicating	Reflecting

MYP Assessment Rubrics

Each subject area will have designed teaching tasks and assessments for the year. Assessment rubrics are shared with students and made available to parents via the FARM.

An example of a criterion D assessment rubric in Mathematics is shown below. In addition to these generic rubrics, students will also be given task specific assessment rubrics which are easier for them to understand.

Note the use of command terms such as apply, explain, state, identify and select. These are examples of the language common to all IB assessments. It is essential that students develop their understanding of the specific meaning of each command term as they progress through each learning stage.

After work is completed by students, their teacher will award a ‘best fit’ level (out of a maximum of 8) and students will receive feedback about strengths and areas for growth for that criteria. The final mark is shared with parents through FARM.

Throughout the year, teachers will have collected evidence of student achievements from many different types of assessments. Sometimes all criteria in the subject are applied to an assessment, but more often only two or three criteria are assessed at any one time.

By the end of the year, students will have completed enough work to be assessed at least twice for each criterion.

MYP Annual Reporting of Grades

At the end of the semester, parents will receive an ‘Overall Level of Achievement’ (OLA) for each subject area within the MYP programme. This will be a number between 1-7.

An example

A student called Roshni may have completed three Criterion D assessment tasks in Maths and achieved levels of 4, 5 and 6. Roshni’s teacher will then make a professional judgment on the ‘best fit’ level of achievement for her in this criterion. This is not an average, the judgement will be based on patterns in the data, the development of that student, and the context that the work was completed in. Because of Roshni’s consistent improvement over the semester, let’s say that she is awarded a 6 out of 8 for this criterion. The 6 is entered into the report card as highlighted in the table below.

End of Year Report Card

Criterion	A	B	C	D	Criterion Levels Total/32	Subject Grade
Language and Literature	6	5	5	7	23	5
Language Acquisition	7	8	8	6	29	7
Individuals and Societies	7	5	6	6	24	6
Sciences	5	4	4	4	17	4
Mathematics	5	5	6	6	22	5
Arts	6	6	5	6	23	5
Physical and Health Education	6	8	7	5	26	6
Design	7	8	6	6	27	6

In each subject, the four criterion levels of achievement are added together to give a total. This total is then compared to the Grade Boundaries Table (see below) published by the IB to give the student an ‘Overall Level of Achievement’ out of 7 for that subject.

Roshni’s 6 out of a possible 8 in Mathematics Criterion D would be added to her levels in the other 3 Mathematics criteria, which would give her a Criterion Level Total out of a possible 32. If Roshni achieved a Criterion Level Total of 22, she would receive a 5 out of 7 for her final OLA in Mathematics (see the table below).

Grade Boundaries table showing how Criterion Level Totals out of 32 are converted into an Overall Level of Achievement for each subject.

Interpreting if your child is making expected progress

MYP objectives and criteria are adjusted according to the year level of the student. This means the objectives a Year 7 (MYP Year 1) student is trying to achieve are less sophisticated than those presented to a student in Year 9 (MYP Year 3).

To this end, if a student achieves a level five in Science at the end of Year 7, expected progress would also be achieving a level five at the end of Year 9.

There is no official equivalence between MYP and GCSE grades, but as a guide, a student achieving level 5 at MYP would be expected to progress to about a grade B (or grade B equivalent) in that subject at GCSE.

Increasing attainment