All secondary academies within Leigh Academies Trust align their educational beliefs and values to reflect the IB Middle Years Programme philosophy. This is to develop enquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.
The Middle Years Programme (MYP) is designed to teach students in Key Stage 3 to become independent learners, who can discover the links between subjects and the real world. The MYP emphasises the study of eight subject groups:
- Language Acquisition
- Language and Literature
- Individuals and Societies
- Sciences
- Mathematics
- Arts
- Physical and Health Education
- Design
The MYP places great emphasis on international-mindedness, interdisciplinary learning and service to others. The programme also offers opportunities to be actively involved in the community and promotes environmental responsibility in an ever changing world.
Assessments will take a variety of forms, both formative and summative.
- Formative assessments are a range of formal and informal assessment procedures conducted by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student achievement. The goal is to accelerate progress, to improve learning and to help the student become a more independent learner. Examples of formative assessments include: conferencing where a student discusses their work with a teacher, fellow student or another adult, reflection where a student reviews their own work, feedback –WWW (What Went Well) and EBI (Even Better If), teacher observations during a lesson or from completed classwork/homework.
- Summative assessments conducted by teachers are used to evaluate learning at the end of a learning process i.e. end of a unit of work. The goal is to provide a final judgement of the learning that has taken place, to identify gaps in knowledge and understanding and to help the student to improve. Examples of summative assessments: tests, examinations, final essay or presentation. This work is usually given a grade or mark.
Teachers collect both formative and summative evidence throughout a unit of work. This helps them to adapt their teaching to meet the needs of students and also assists when reporting to parents, students and other stakeholders.
Each subject group within the MYP has 4 set assessment areas called criteria (A B C D) which are subject specific. This helps students to develop the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in each subject group. These skills are often transferable to other subject groups and aspects of learning. Year 7 will be assessed based on the Year 1 criteria and Year 8 and 9 will be assessed based on the Year 2 criteria.
Teachers will assess your child according to each of these criteria at least twice across each year.
The MYP assessment process is a criterion-related model. The strengths of this model are:
- Students know before even attempting the work what needs to be done to reach each level.
- It helps teachers to clarify and express their expectations about assignments in a way that students can understand.
- Students are assessed for what they can do, rather than being ranked against each other.
- Students receive feedback on their performance based on the criteria level descriptors.
Language and Literature
Criterion A
Analysing
Criterion B
Organising
Criterion C
Producing Text
Criterion D
Using Language
Language Acquisition
Criterion A
Communicating spoken and visual text
Criterion B
Communicating spoken and visual text
Criterion C
Communicating
Criterion D
Using language in spoken and / or written form
Individuals and Societies
Criterion A
Knowing and understanding
Criterion B
Investigating
Criterion C
Communicating
Criterion D
Thinking critically
Arts
Criterion A
Knowing and understanding
Criterion B
Developing skills
Criterion C
Thinking creatively
Criterion D
Responding
Design
Criterion A
Inquiring and analysing
Criterion B
Developing ideas
Criterion C
Creating the solution
Criterion D
Evaluating
Mathematics
Criterion A
Knowing and understanding
Criterion B
Investigating patterns
Criterion C
Communicating
Criterion D
Applying mathematics in real-life contexts
Sciences
Criterion A
Knowing and understanding
Criterion B
Inquiring and designing
Criterion C
Processing and evaluating
Criterion D
Reflecting on the impacts of science
Physical and Health Education
Criterion A
Knowing and understanding
Criterion B
Planning for performance
Criterion C
Applying and performing
Criterion D
Reflecting and improving performance
Interdisciplinary
Criterion A
Evaluating
Criterion B
Synthesising
Criterion C
Reflecting
As the table above shows, the MYP has a clear set of assessment criteria for each subject group. Having clear criteria is very helpful as students will know what the learning expectations are for a particular level of achievement before attempting an assignment. As a result, your child will be able to monitor their own progress. The criteria also support teachers to clarify expectations to students and can shape lessons to ensure your child meets the requirements of the assessment.
Each criterion has eight achievement levels. These are added together to give an achievement level out of a total of 32.
Teachers must gather sufficient evidence from a range of assessment tasks to enable them to make a professional and informed judgement guided by the criteria to determine a student’s achievement level. Achievement levels for the four criteria are added together creating a total number out of 32. Using the table below, this is converted to an MYP Grade from 1-7 with 7 being the highest. This table describes in broad terms what a student can do.
Sum of assessed criteria
MYP Grade
Description
28-32
7
Produces high-quality, frequently innovative work. Communicates comprehensive, nuanced understanding of concepts and contexts. Consistently demonstrates sophisticated critical and creative thinking. Frequently transfers knowledge and skills with independence and expertise in a variety of complex classroom and real-world situations.
24-27
6
Produces high-quality, occasionally innovative work. Communicates extensive understanding of concepts and contexts. Demonstrates critical and creative thinking, frequently with sophistication. Uses knowledge and skills in familiar and unfamiliar classroom and real-world situations, often with independence.
19-23
5
Produces generally high-quality work. Communicates secure understanding of concepts and contexts. Demonstrates critical and creative thinking, sometimes with sophistication. Uses knowledge and skills in familiar classroom and real-world situations, and, with support, some unfamiliar real-world situations
15-18
4
Produces good quality work. Communicates basic understanding of most concepts and contexts with few misunderstandings and minor gaps. Often demonstrates basic critical and creative thinking. Uses knowledge and skills with some flexibility in familiar classroom situations, but requires support in unfamiliar situations.
10-14
3
Produces work of an acceptable quality. Communicates basic understanding of many concepts and contexts, with occasionally significant misunderstandings or gaps. Begins to demonstrate some basic critical and creative thinking. Is often inflexible in the use of knowledge and skills, requiring support even in familiar classroom situations.
6-9
2
Produces work of limited quality. Expresses misunderstandings or significant gaps in understanding for many concepts and contexts. Infrequently demonstrates critical or creative thinking. Generally inflexible in the use of knowledge and skills, infrequently applying knowledge and skills.
1-5
1
Produces work of very limited quality. Conveys many significant misunderstandings or lacks understanding of most concepts and skills. Very rarely demonstrates critical or creative thinking. Very inflexible, rarely using knowledge or skills.
Parents/carers will receive a report that shows their child’s progress for each subject group at published times during the course of the academic year. For each subject group there will be an achievement level breakdown (1-8) of the 4 criteria (A B C D) for that subject. Alongside the level for each criterion you will receive a statement of what the student has done to achieve this level.
The example below is for a year 7 pupil assessed based on the Year 1 criteria. It shows the student has an achievement level of a 1 for Criterion A, level 4 for Criterion B, level 6 for Criterion C and a level 4 for Criterion D for Language and Literature. This gives a total of 15/32, which can be converted to an MYP Grade 4 using the table above. Grade 4 is awarded for a total of between 15 and 18, so this highlights that there are aspects of the student’s work that could be improved within that section.
Teachers, students and parents will be expected to review and reflect on this and take action to improve. To fully support our students, we ask that you go through each criterion and identify the level your child is working at, and then refer to the subject criterion that is below each subject’s table as below. This discussion should identify what they need to do to move up to the next level in each criterion and therefore become even stronger lifelong learners.
English
Term 3
Criterion A: Analysing
Level 1: The student: i. provides some minimal identification and comment upon significant aspects of texts ii. provides some minimal identification and comment upon the creator’s choices iii. rarely justifies opinions and ideas with examples or explanations; uses little or no terminology iv. begin to identify few similarities and differences in features within and between texts.
Criterion B: Organising
Level 4: The student: i. makes adequate use of organizational structures that serve the context and intention ii. organises opinions and ideas with some degree of logic iii. makes adequate use of referencing and formatting tools to create a presentation style suitable to the context and intention.
Criterion C: Producing text
Level 6: The student: i. produces texts that demonstrate considerable personal engagement with the creative process; demonstrates considerable thought or imagination and substantial exploration of new perspectives and ideas ii. makes thoughtful stylistic choices in terms of linguistic, literary and visual devices, demonstrating good awareness of impact on an audience iii. selects sufficient relevant details and examples to support ideas.
Criterion D: Using language
Level 4: The student: i. uses an adequate range of appropriate vocabulary, sentence structures and forms of expression ii. sometimes writes and speaks in a register and style that serve the context and intention iii. uses grammar, syntax and punctuation with some degree of accuracy; errors sometimes hinder communication iv. spells/writes and pronounces with some degree of accuracy; errors sometimes hinder communication v. makes some use of appropriate non-verbal communication techniques.
Interim MYP Grade: 4
Produces good-quality work. Communicates basic understanding of most concepts and contexts with few misunderstandings and minor gaps. Often demonstrates basic critical and creative thinking. Uses knowledge and skills with some flexibility in familiar classroom situations, but requires support in unfamiliar situations.
During the course of the academic year students will be awarded an MYP Interim Grade in term 3 and at the end of the year a MYP Final Grade will be awarded based on a best-fit model using the summative assessments that have taken place during the course of the year.