Formative and Summative Assessment

Formative assessment (Assessment for Learning)

This type of assessment includes both short and long-term learning experiences that culminate in on-going feedback to inform students’ targets as well as teaching strategies.

Examples of formative assessment includes extended written tasks, diagrammatic forms of communication, mind-maps, open-ended opportunities for developing questions, quizzes and presentations in a variety of formats. Formative assessments provide data of students’ knowledge and skills that inform teaching and learning strategies.

Summative Assessment (Assessment of Learning)

This form of assessment is designed to illustrate students’ skill and knowledge levels at designated points of their learning timeline. The evidence drawn from this type of assessment informs the periodic progress reports.

Examples of summative assessment include unit tests, summative projects and oral examinations. CES internal summative assessments inform students progress reports and predicted grades that are reported to universities, while external summative assessments are led by the Cambridge IGCSE / A level examinations as well as the IB Diploma Programme.

Maintaining Deadlines for Internal Assessment Projects

Students are required to work on individual research projects. While skills are taught at school, much of the research and written work will be done at home. It is essential that students show their teachers their planning and subsequent drafts in order to receive feedback and guidance through this process. Since the nature of this work is independent inquiry, the nature of guidance is through constructive comments on students’ attempted work. Students will be given deadlines for producing work in progress. If a student misses these deadlines, they will miss out on interim feedback and their final project submissions are unlikely to reflect their potential.

Between 20 – 25% of the attainment scores for each IB Diploma Course is based on such research projects or planned oral assessments. These are known as Internal Assessments (IA) and are assessed internally at CES and then moderated externally by the IB.

The remaining 75-80% of attainment scores for the IB Diploma Courses are based on external examinations that are held in May at the end of the two-year programme.