We are pleased to announce that this year’s ISA results are now available. To view your child’s results, go to his/her student website and click on “Reports” along the top of the page. From this drop-down menu you are able to select past school reports and ISA results, including 2013-4. The document is password-protected: “abisoman”.
The International Schools Assessment (ISA) is a two-day set of examinations undertaken by ABIS students in grades 3-10 every February. Using a combination of multiple choice and open-ended questions, the ISA assesses students in reading, mathematical literacy, and writing (narrative and expository). The ISA is designed for students in international schools and last year over 64,000 students around the world took part.
Your child has a four-page report detailing his/her performance in all four areas of the assessment. The first page of the report explains how to read the results, and I’ll briefly summarize those instructions now. The exams are scored on an 800-point scale. Your child’s score appears as the black dot on the scale on the right-hand side of the report. The grey band on the report represents the middle 60% of all students in your child’s class around the world. This gives you some context as to where your child performed versus the world-wide cohort.
It is very important to stress the limitations of the ISA. It is a two-day “snapshot” of your child’s academic growth and, as such, is easily affected by a whole range of outside factors. Also, the ISA does not emphasize higher-level thinking, creativity, and analysis–areas that are stressed at ABIS, but notoriously difficult to assess in a one-shot tests.
Ultimately, we value ISA scores as one factor of many that helps us–students, parents, and teachers, together–best understand how that student is progressing and how we can best ensure future success.