The Primary Science Syllabus for Years 1 – 6 is written using the outcomes – based approach to education in Solomon Islands. This syllabus is based on an outcome – based curriculum framework with a philosophy of a learner centred teaching pedagogy. It is based on learning outcomes as curriculum standards. These are curriculum requirements that should guide the planning for effective teaching and learning strategies as well as designing and setting of valid, fair and reliable assessments. These standards or curriculum requirements will become the assessment benchmarks for assessment at the school and national levels using both the formative and summative form of assessments.
Assessment is defined as a continued planned process of gathering, analysing and interpreting information and data on students learning. It is a process of seeking and interpreting evidences used by learners and their teachers, to identify where the learners are in their learning, and where they need to go to and how best to get
there. It is important that teachers diagnose and identify learning abilities of learners in order for them to develop and implement intervention strategies to improve both the learning process of learners and teaching approaches of the teachers. Teachers need to support learners who have acquired the learning outcomes or curriculum requirements in order to maintain their level of performance and similarly assist leaners who have not acquired the requirements with remedial tasks. This is to enable learners to acquire the curriculum requirements and progressed on with their learning. Therefore such an assessment strategy is aiming towards improving both the learning and teaching processes and should focus more on a learner centred teaching pedagogy.
The assessment component in this syllabus involves both internal and external assessments and national examinations. Such an assessment approach is sometimes referred to as formative and summative assessments. However, assessment of learning outcomes differs in some ways from the traditional way of assessing objectives using the norm – referenced assessment. Assessment of learning outcomes focuses more on the criteria – referenced assessment and will allow learners to compete against set and agreed curriculum standards. The emphasis is more on formative and diagnostic form of assessments because it is an ongoing assessment in the classroom. The assessment of learning outcomes will be using achievement levels. These levels have descriptors of possible performance abilities or skills at different intellectual and hierarchical competencies for each of the learning outcome assessed. Teachers will then be able to identify achievement levels for each student and be able to set remedial tasks to assist underachieving learners. The assessment data and information should be recorded and kept in a systematic and orderly manner as learning records in the schools.
The assessment information and data gathered from such assessments can be used for improving the learning and teaching processes in the classroom and for making informed decisions regarding assessments in the schools and national assessments and examinations. Furthermore, such information and data will also inform the Curriculum Development Division (CDD) and National Examination and Standards Unit (NESU) of the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MEHRD) as well as the School of Education and Humanities (SOEH) of the Solomon Islands National University (SINU) on how the prescribed or the intended curriculum was taught and learnt in schools and how best to improve both the teaching and learning processes and implementation of valid, fair and reliable formative and summative assessments.
It is the Ministry’s plan to phase out the Year Six (6) – SISE Examinations by 2015. It would mean that all Primary Schools should implement a 100% School Based Assessment (SBA) by 2015. The SBA component should be implemented as part of the teaching and learning processes and should focus on individuals and the learner centred teaching philosophy. The purpose of having an SBA is for assessing skills that are not assessable in the summative assessments and national examinations. Furthermore, such an assessment approach is vital to strengthen key components of the formative assessment, that is, to be more valid, fair and reliable in terms of having common assessment tasks (CAT) as well as creating provisions for teacher designed assessment tasks (TDAT) to meet the learning needs of the learners within the school context and learning environment. Detailed information, guidelines and appropriate weightings for SBA and internal assessment for Primary Science can be obtained from the subject prescription handbook.