March is the month of tests

This is a strange thing I am doing now. I am making excuses. I didn't manage to write a blog last month. So this month, first I am going to write why I didn't. I was almost torturing my kids with the tons of tests which I gave to them.

I didn't realise how much work need to go in at the end of the year to finish an academic year. So the realisation set in on the last city meet in TFI where the staff introduced to us the final exams which we need to administer to our students. That is 7 tests of one hour each. Then there are the ASSET exams, English and Maths. Thats the time I counted the number of days remaining before the final exams in school start. We counted and unbelievingly recounted the number of instructional days remaining and all the time came up with the number 10. So that time I knew that what ever I was going to teach this year, I have already taught and it is only testing which is going to happen now.

I did a 3 day marathon revision before I started giving them the exams one after the other. Sometimes I managed to do an hour of revision, most of the time they were only writing exams.

I did the below-grade level tests in reading comprehension for grade 2 and 3 also with my kids. The results are not very encouraging, it shows that my 4th graders are still at the level of 2nd and 3rd grades mostly. But it is indeed an improvement over the KG levels in which some of them have come in. I also realised that, even though the kids are able to do Maths, if they do not understand the question properly they cannot do it. So reading comprehension will take the foremost place during next year. This test was supposed to be for data collection for future comparisons and not really for assessing ourselves. But since data is available, it indeed is not possible not to look at it and not feel bad.

Then the school exams started and it was a cycle of revision and tests. So every day for me it was correcting the answer papers, entering data, preparing for sessions which will keep the kids engaged for one and a half hours before I give the exams.

Today, we had a session in which I gave the results for the entire year's tests and announced the winners. The ones who got 2 purple crowns in the behavior chart got books and gift sets. Those who had one purple crown got gift sets. Those who have topped the subjects, shown biggest improvements from the beginning, or have been present in class the most days got Dairy Milks.

The exams are over, the corrections, the entering data and also the group photograph. Now it is reflection time again. I will come back with that soon.

ps. The activity which has taken the most amount of time during March is a secret. I can just tell that it involved around 6 red pens, a computer printed mark list and the future of 300 youngsters!