Student Assessment

Wildwood’s approach to student assessment is designed to actively engage students at all levels. Our process emphasizes critical thinking, collaboration, and reflection so that students develop the essential skills to launch them into life beyond the classroom. 

Standards-Based Mastery Learning

Wildwood School uses a standards-based approach to assessment; each discipline (K-5) and each course (grades 6-12) has six standards, each of which articulates an expected area of skills-based learning to be mastered by the end of the school year. Teachers assess a student’s progress in each of the six standards using rubrics and written feedback to provide actionable feedback that helps students navigate their learning with intention and purpose. Because each standard covers a nuanced or dynamic area of learning, rubrics map out for students the subset skills they need to cultivate in order to eventually master the skill. 

Students master a standard when they can independently demonstrate the expected skills over time in a variety of contexts. The mastery indicators (or levels of mastery) are not stand-ins for traditional letter grades, they are not averages based on points, nor are they representative of a bell curve. While this approach is a mindset shift for many that can take some time to understand or adjust to, we believe this approach nurtures lifelong learning.

In-Depth Narrative Assessments

Wildwood School uses narrative assessments twice yearly to provide detailed feedback on students’ work and learning in connection to the grade-level standards in each of their core subject areas, as well as about their social and emotional development. Assessments of mastery levels reflect a synthesis of formative and summative, formal and informal assessments that illustrate the student’s learning trajectory.

These written reports become the basis for goal setting for future learning and are the catalyst for a fluid and ongoing conversation about the student’s varied interests, strengths, stretches, and abilities. They also serve as a permanent and official record of student learning.

In the upper school, narrative assessments are translated into letter grades on a four-point scale and noted on a student’s transcript.

Powerful Reflective Practices

Students are prompted to reflect on themselves as learners throughout their K-12 journey. Students routinely reflect on their process and their progress, sharing in conversation or in writing about what they understand about themselves as learners and how they know it.

Students in kindergarten and 1st grade are asked to choose pieces of work to share at their parent/teacher conferences, and starting in 2nd grade, students begin to attend conferences in person, sharing work samples and talking about their strengths and stretches within each academic area.

In the 5th grade and continuing through middle and upper school, conferences are student-led, allowing students to articulate their evolving understanding of their learning, a process that deepens in scope and complexity as they progress through each grade level. Conferences are the scaffolding for the Gateway presentations in 8th and 10th grade and the Senior Exhibitions in 12th grade.