New Year is a time for reflection and moving forward as we try to build upon our success in the previous year and work on areas of our lives that might not have been so successful.

Whether you celebrated New Year on the 1st of January or will do so with Chinese New Year in the coming weeks this time of year is one of reflection. Reflection is also one of the key features of learning at ISS. Students are continually asked to review their own progress and, with help from feedback given by teachers and peers are able to reflect upon how they can make things better.

This level of reflection is one of the key aspects of the Learner Profile and allows all our students to be active participants in their own learning. A great example of the power of feedback and reflection can be seen in the following Video of ‘Austin’s Butterfly’:

In this video you will see the power of feedback on one Grade One students’ work.

It is this kind of reflection and enthusiasm for learning that we will continue to reflect upon our practice to ensure we do an even better job at achieving for all students at ISS in the New Year.

Derek Pinchbeck
Elementary School Principal

How to help your child to be more reflective?

• Ask them about what they liked most about the day just past?
• Focus on the process and the effort put in not the achievement made.
• Encourage them to view learning as fun and not knowing as exciting.
• Listen to what they have to say and show interest in their interest.
• Praise your child’s perseverance, hard work and enthusiasm to take risks not their intelligence.

ISA Testing at ISS

One of the most important questions for parents is always, “How is my child doing?”. A related question is ‘Compared to what?” This is a particularly critical question for families away from home, where it is hard to know how systems, and standards, compare. Until recently it has been difficult for any international school to answer these questions in a really substantial way, because the international school network has not had access to a form of external assessment normed on international standards. This has now changed, with the development of The International Schools’ Assessment (ISA).

On February 2nd and 3rd students in Grade 3,4,5, 6, 7,8 will be sitting the (ISA)

When they return from trip week on Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th students in Grade 9, 10 will also be sitting the assessments.

These assessments are sat by over 70,000 students worldwide and provide an indication of students’ achievement in Reading, Writing and Mathematical Literacy.

What is ISA?

International Schools’ Assessment (ISA) is an annual assessment programme that has been specially developed to measure skills in mathematical literacy, reading and writing of students in international schools.

ISA is based on the internationally endorsed reading and mathematical literacy frameworks of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It is designed and developed in Australia by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).

The ISA reports provide descriptive information about what students know and can do. The results are equated from year to year so they can be used to track changes over time at individual and school level.

What is ISA NOT?

ISA is not a competitive or comparative test, such as the IB Diploma, AP, SATS etc. It is not a test that students “pass”. It will not be used for purposes other than providing data to us, you, and your child, about his/her learning. Students do not ‘prepare’ for the tests, since they are consistent with what students learn on a regular basis.

How do the assessments work?

Students complete a reading literacy test, a mathematical literacy test and two writing tests, each of which takes between 45 minutes and one hour to administer. The tests include both multiple-choice and open ended tasks.

How do the ISA’s help ISS to improve student learning?

The ISA’s provides the school with valuable data to improve student learning both for the individual student and across the schools’ programmes. They do this by:

• measuring individual students' achievement in order to reflect on and address strengths and weaknesses
• monitoring an individual's or group's progress over time
• evaluating instructional programs against objective evidence of student performance, to diagnose gaps, and to measure growth in learning between grade levels and from year to year within one grade level
• comparing subgroup performance (e.g. girls and boys; students from different language backgrounds) to see where there may be unexpected results and try to understand them
• providing normative data in relation to selected population to see "how we are doing"
• by being able to compare ISS with the average results from all other participating schools
• by being able to compare with average results from "like schools" - other international schools with similar profiles
• by being able to compare 8th, 9th and 10th grade international school students with international results and national groups for 15-year-olds from 65 countries (via PISA data)

What information will I receive as a parent?

We will pass on all information about your child to you in the form of an individual report. These reports are provided by ACER and are very comprehensive. They will give you a detailed record of your child’s performance in relation to scales that describe increasingly advanced skills in mathematical literacy, reading literacy and writing. You will receive them by the end of May. It is entirely your decision as to whether you pass on this information to another school when you leave ISS.