Skills and the so-called ‘setting’ system will replace memorised answers and streaming for a new school test system set to replace the Junior Lyceum entrance exams in the first week of June.
The new benchmark tests will assess students’ skill levels in a particular topic rather than establish a pass or fail grade.
According to the results, students will be placed in classes – called ‘sets’ – for individual topics where their skills can be developed further.
The system will be in place in all state schools, while Church and independent schools have until mid-February to decide whether they will join the system or not.
“This is a much better system than streaming,” director general at the Directorate of Educational Services Micheline Sciberras told The Sunday Times yesterday.
“Say you have two students: one gets an 80 mark in English and a 40 in Maths; the other gets an 80 in Maths and a 40 in English. When you work out the average, it’s the same, and these students would have ended up in the same class even though they had different strengths and needs.”
With setting, as the new system is known, the first student would be studying English in a class which went well beyond the minimum curriculum for the subject, while his Maths class would cover the basic curriculum until he is ready to move up to the next set.
In this way, Dr Sciberras said, the whole spectrum of abilities would be catered for.
Speaking at the launch of the benchmark tests at LuqaPrimary School, Grace Grima, director general for Quality and Standards in Education, outlined the way these tests would work.
Rather than focusing exclusively on written assessments, the tests for Maltese and English will be split into speaking, listening, a reading comprehension exercise and creative writing.
The Mathematics examination will have a ‘mental’ section making up 20 per cent of the exam, with the rest of the marks derived from another section with problems and questions.
Meanwhile, Social Studies and Religion, which previously were examined with the other three core subjects, will still be tested at the end of Years 4, 5 and 6. However, the exams will not be based so heavily on memory work and will also see a different kind of question.
The test papers, which will not have personal data on them, will be corrected twice by teachers – and the result will be then given to the school, which might decide to include some comments –following which it will be sent to the parents.
Test times will also be lengthened to allow students to complete their paper without being rushed, while students with reading difficulties would be able to have their Maths paper read out.
Meetings will start this week for parents at the various colleges while an information session for the public will be held in Floriana on January 29.