From the Director
Welcome to the end of another week. Can you believe we only have two and a half more weeks until the end of the year? What a year it’s been. My colleagues are flat out making all the preparations for the end of year events. I hope you can join us for some of them, they should be good.
Tomorrow would have been the 104th birthday of John. F. Kennedy.
As an English teacher, I love JFK, his speeches have such cadence to them,
I often used to teach them. Here are one or two quotes from JFK, some food for
thought over the weekend. He said:
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”
“One person can make a difference and everyone should try.”
“Liberty without learning is always in peril, and learning without liberty is always in
vain.”
“Change is the law of life, and those who look only to the past or the present are
certain to miss the future.”
“ A child miseducated is a child lost.”
“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for
diversity, for in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit
this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future.
And we are all mortal.”
And then finally, one for me as a sometime poet:
“If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I’m convinced the
world would be a better place to live in.”
Have a great weekend everybody.
Stephen Lang
Director
From the Head of Primary
Reports - Formative vs Summative Assessment
Next week you will be getting an email to ask you to add a parent comment to your child’s
report. Please try to complete this form, as we value your contribution to your child’s school
journey. I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to discuss how we assess your
child here at the ABC.
Assessment in schools can be broadly separated into two categories; summative and
formative assessment. Summative assessment is the 'sum' of learning. It is designed to be
a one-off test that assesses how much someone has learnt by the end of a unit, course or
year. Formative assessment is ongoing assessment. It is the daily questions, observations,
marking, discussions and observations that are taken throughout each day and week, to
inform how someone's learning is progressing and where to go next in the learning journey.
Formative assessment:
This type of assessment takes many forms. Teachers will use learning objectives and
success criteria in lessons, giving children a chance to self assess against the targets, either
at the end of the lesson or during the learning. Then, the teacher will use the success
criteria to mark the work and decide how much the child understood and what the next
steps are for improving further. Formative assessment can also take the form of targeted
questions. Teachers will ask children specific, open ended questions, to find out what the
child has learnt and understood. The children's responses to these questions will allow the
teacher to judge if the child understands the lesson and identify any misconceptions that
they may need support with. So, formative assessment is ongoing assessment. It can take
the form of success criteria, marking, discussions with children, targeted questioning,
observations and quizzes/challenges that test a child's deeper understanding of a subject.
They happen everyday and help to inform what will happen next.
Summative assessment:
This type of assessment is designed to test how much a child knows at the end of a unit,
course or year. It is a one-off test that shows what the child knows on that one specific day.
It is a total of all the learning that has occurred so far. These tests will happen at the end of
each half term, term or at the end of the year, to assess the sum of all the learning. This
will inform the teacher of what the child has been able to recall of the learning from that
period of time. This tells the teacher what gaps there may be in the subject knowledge and
where the child may need extra support. So, summative assessment is one-off testing,
designed to find out what a child knows at the end of a period of learning. It happens at
specific times and is not ongoing. Our Grade 5s have recently taken online reading tests in
Spanish and English, and this is an example of summative assessment.
While both formative and summative assessments will usually be used to fully assess how
well a child has understood an assessment, for us at the ABC we find formative assessments
to be extremely beneficial to the teaching process. This is because teachers can use the
results to understand how well students have taken on board the topic and adjust their
teaching to support them further if necessary. Formative assessment information is shared
with parents in 3-Way conferences and via the Evidence Me App. Our school reports are
based on formative assessments, what has your child shown us that they can do and what
do they need to do next. When you get your child’s report in the final week of term, please
take the time to look at the next steps and contact the class teacher if you want some ideas
on how to support your child to reach them over the summer.
Dates for your Diary
PRIMARY
May
Monday 31st - Week ‘X’ Hybrid Plan
Monday 31st - Padre-Hijo 4to Grado/ Charla COESAL - (6pm-7pm)
Monday 31st - Madre-Hija 4to Grado/ Charla COESAL - (6pm-7pm)
June
Wednesday 2nd - Padre-Hijo 5to Grado/ Charla COESAL - (6pm-7pm)
Wednesday 2nd - Madre-Hija 5to Grado/ Charla COESAL - (6pm-7pm)
Monday 7th - Week ‘Y’ Hybrid Plan
Monday 14th - All students online
Tuesday 15th - All students online
Wednesday 16th - All students online
Wednesday 16th - Last day of school
Thursday 17th - Father’s Day
Tuesday 22nd - Teacher’s Day
From the Secondary Leadership Team
In a normal year, Grade 12 would have completed their IB Diploma exams last Friday and
Grade 10 would be just over half way through their IGCSEs. Needless to say, this has not
been a normal year. However, just like we did in 2020’s cancelled exam season, we have
taken advantage of the additional exam free weeks in order to prep students for the road
ahead.
G10 in particular have had an intensive few weeks exploring the IBDP in detail so that they
know what to expect over the course of the next two years. Those who have thrown
themselves into the various research activities, essay writing workshops, university sessions
and upcoming written and oral tasks should find themselves well prepared for a successful
beginning to the IB Diploma Programme. For those of you interested in learning more about
the final two years of student life in the ABC, I’ll hand you over to Grade 10 by displaying
some of the brochures they produced from the first research task. Below you’ll be able to
see some pictures, and you can also find them as an attachment to this email.
Thanks Grade 10 and I hope their work inspires you to encourage any younger students
towards successful IB Diploma years:
Colin Hogan
Assistant Head IB Diploma Years
Dates for your diary
SECONDARY
May
Monday 31st - Cohort X - Grade 6, 7, 8, 9 & 11 Hybrid
June
Wednesday 2nd - STEAM Fest - Exposition launch
Monday 7th - Cohort Y - Grade 6, 7, 8, 9 Hybrid
Monday 7th - School Mock Court Project (ends)
Monday 7th - Class 2021: Acción de Gracias, virtual event
Tuesday 8th - Group photo and short Graduation practice
Thursday 10th - Class of 2021: Graduation Ceremony
Friday 11th - Senior Exit
Friday 11th - STEAM Fest - winners announced and Grade 10 Awards Ceremony
Saturday 12th - Class of 2021: Graduation Dinner
Monday 14th to Wednesday 16th - All Secondary grades online
Wednesday 16th - Last Day of School Year 20-21
Thursday 17th - Father's Day (school closed)
Friday 18th - First day of summer holiday (school closed)
