Assessing Capacity of Pupils

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6627, 14 August 1931, Page 3

Assessing Capacity of Pupils

APART FROM EXAMINATION TEST FEILDING HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIMENT

“The half-yearly examinations have been completed and reports will be sent out as usual at the end of the term. Besides the customary written examination, an assessment is made by committees of the staff of each pupil’s general capacity and tho degree to which he or she is endeavouring to use natural ability in various directions. This is not so much an attempt to discover aptitudes, -to use a popular phrase, as to assess the use being made of the opportunities offered by the school. If any restriction is to bo made in the award of free places—and it appears likely that, somo restriction will bo made—the first pupils to lose free places should bo those who are not making full uso of tho opportunities for development that a free place provides.”

Tho foregoing extract from fjie ri} ‘ port of tho principal (Hr. L. J. Wild) to Wednesday’s meeting of the Board of Managers of the Feilding Agricultural High School was amplified by Mr. Wild, in supplementary remarks. The ordinary written examinations wore all very well, ho said, but it did not always follow that a pupil obtaining high marks was using all his opportunities for advancement. On the other hand, a pupil might not secure the best marks for his written work, but might show evidence of utilising his capacity for advancement by exploiting all the opportunities the school offered. In his opinion the examination was never an accurate representation of tho capacity of tho pupils, and the staff had been experimenting with a system for assessing the capacity of pupils. Staff committees were set up to consider the all-round work of various pupils and assess their merits. If pupils wero considered to bo doing thoroughly satisfactorily they were allocated marks from 7 to 10; if doing more than satisfactorily, then the marks would be 8, 9 or 10. If pupils were palpably neglecting their opportunities for advancing their knowledge, then tho marks allocated would be somewhere below 7. He confessed that the system was not entirely satisfactory because, however much one tried, it was not possible to get to know what children had in their minds. It was, however, a very useful test or estimate; it gave a pupil the staff idea of him. The marked examination papers only indicated what the staff thought of the papers, and not what they thought of the pupils or how they were using their opportunities for development.