Page 22 - Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting in Ontario Schools. First Edition, Covering Grades 1 to 12. 2010

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PERFORMANCE STANDARDS – THE ACHIEVEMENT CHART
PERFORMANCE STANDARDS – THE ACHIEVEMENT CHART
POLICY
The Ontario curriculum for Grades 1 to 12 comprises content standards and performance standards. Assessment and evaluation will be based on both the content standards and the performance standards.
The content standards are the curriculum expectations identified for every subject and discipline. They describe the knowledge and skills students are expected to develop and demonstrate in their class work, on tests, and in various other activities on which their achievement is assessed and evaluated. There are two sets of curriculum expectations – overall expectations and specific expectations. The overall expectations describe in general terms the knowledge and skills that students are expected to demonstrate by the end of each grade or course. The specific expectations describe the expected knowledge and skills in greater detail. Taken together, the overall and specific expectations represent the mandated curriculum – the content standards.
The performance standards are outlined in the achievement chart that appears in the elementary and secondary curriculum document for every subject or discipline. The achievement chart for each subject/discipline is a standard province-wide guide and is to be used by all teachers as a framework within which to assess and evaluate student achievement of the expectations in the particular subject or discipline. It enables teachers to make consistent judgements about the quality of student learning based on clear performance standards and on a body of evidence collected over time. It also provides teachers with a foundation for developing clear and specific feedback for students and parents.
The purposes of the achievement chart are to:
• provide a common framework that encompasses all curriculum expectations for all subjects/courses across grades;
• guide the development of high-quality assessment tasks and tools (including rubrics);
• help teachers to plan instruction for learning;
• provide a basis for consistent and meaningful feedback to students in relation to provincial content and performance standards;
• establish categories and criteria with which to assess and evaluate students’ learning.