Grades are degrading for students

SCHOOLS should scrap the conventional A to E grading system because it simply judges students and leaves them disillusioned, a leading educational researcher says.

Australian Council for Educational Research chief executive Professor Geoff Masters said significant reform of school assessment was needed to better focus on student progress.

"I think A to E grades, while current practice to use, have a limited shelf-life," he said.

"We need to find an alternative that makes sense to parents and student, that helps them to see and understand where they are up to in their long-term learning.

"If a student gets a D one year and a D the next, then they might think they're not making any progress at all when they are but the current reporting process doesn't help them see it."

Prof Masters said this could contribute to some students becoming disillusioned with the school system.

"We treat students as if they are on an assembly line and provide them all with the same learning experiences based on age," he said.

"When I say this, people tend to think I believe we should have lower standards for some students but ... we just need to recognise that people are at different levels.

"When students start school, there's often years difference in their level of ability. It happens at the other end too, where high achievers tend to cruise through meeting year-level standards.

"We should have high expectations of progress and want all students to move a long way in 12 months but that might not be close to (the average result) we'd hope for their age."

Prof Masters said the national literacy and numeracy tests were a more appropriate form of assessment because it was possible to track a student's improvement across the years.

In Prof Masters' paper Reforming Educational Assessment: Imperatives, principles and challenges, released at an ACER conference yesterday, he states other professions such as medicine and psychology already use assessment to understand rather than judge.

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