State Testing
Last week marked our school wide state testing week which means our 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders spent about 60-80 minutes each day taking tests in all subject areas. Fun stuff :).
This week comes with a whole lot of thoughts, feelings, and emotions from everyone involved making it a pretty intense week at school. On one hand, these tests are a very big deal to us. Our school is labeled as Persistently Low Achieving and the only thing that will get us off this list is improved test scores. Right now, it's literally as black and white as that, raise the scores = less pressure. Communicating this to the students gets tricky because you can't stress them out too much because they'll shut down but you also need them to take it seriously enough to give their best effort. Honestly, it's a bit exhausting.
Luckily it's over but now the tough part begins... the waiting. We'll find out towards the end of May how we did so we shall see. I'm hopeful, I really am. We've made some significant improvements in our school from last year to this year and I truly believe this will translate into improved scores.
One highlight of last week came when I was counting and organizing the test booklets for the next day and stumbled upon this card made by one of our 4th graders...
A few teachers had students make their own "bubble sheet marker" out of note cards so they could track the lines on their bubble sheets and make sure they completed them correctly. Kids were told to draw or write something that would make them relaxed and happy while taking the tests. I was very impressed with this. It may have even made me cry but that's probably the hormones, right?
A great message for anytime, don't you agree?
This week comes with a whole lot of thoughts, feelings, and emotions from everyone involved making it a pretty intense week at school. On one hand, these tests are a very big deal to us. Our school is labeled as Persistently Low Achieving and the only thing that will get us off this list is improved test scores. Right now, it's literally as black and white as that, raise the scores = less pressure. Communicating this to the students gets tricky because you can't stress them out too much because they'll shut down but you also need them to take it seriously enough to give their best effort. Honestly, it's a bit exhausting.
Luckily it's over but now the tough part begins... the waiting. We'll find out towards the end of May how we did so we shall see. I'm hopeful, I really am. We've made some significant improvements in our school from last year to this year and I truly believe this will translate into improved scores.
One highlight of last week came when I was counting and organizing the test booklets for the next day and stumbled upon this card made by one of our 4th graders...
A few teachers had students make their own "bubble sheet marker" out of note cards so they could track the lines on their bubble sheets and make sure they completed them correctly. Kids were told to draw or write something that would make them relaxed and happy while taking the tests. I was very impressed with this. It may have even made me cry but that's probably the hormones, right?
A great message for anytime, don't you agree?
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