Undertake Regular Assessment to track progress
Background
Literacy and numeracy are important building blocks in establishing an educational foundation for later learning. Improved literacy and numeracy at schools are important to improve overall levels of literacy in society, which results in social benefits, such as health benefits. Higher numeracy and literacy will reduce dropouts and grade repetition and thus increase efficiency of educational system. Regular assessments of high standard are important to track learner progress in all subjects and Grades. Improved learner attainment and retention promotes access to quality education by all learners.
Pre Grade 12
The common quarterly tests from the provincial office were introduced for all grade 3, 6 and 9 learners for both Literacy/ Languages and Numeracy/ Mathematics during 2010 to ensure that the basic skills are taught and tested.The Foundation Phase as well as Intermediate Phase teachers were trained on the Literacy and Numeracy methodologies such as Word and Sentence Level, Guided and Shared Reading, Independent Reading and Writing, Problem Solving, Mental Maths, Counting and Number Concept Development. These provincial tests are given to learners to improve their literacy and numeracy skills and also to prepare them for the Annual National Assessments (Grade 3, 6 and 9 numeracy and literacy).The importance of examinations and assessment as an integral part of the annual assessment process cannot be overemphasized.
Annual National Assessment (ANA)
The next round of Annual National Assessments (ANA) will be written in September 2012; however, the results of the ANA of February 2011 have been presented to all relevant role-players. The results informed the Provincial and District Intervention Strategies. Guidelines on the interpretation of the results were also presented to assist in the development of Academic Improvement Plans.
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Grade 12
Following the introduction of the National Curriculum Statement (NCS), the Free State has continued to perform above the national pass rate. The year 2008 witnessed the first National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations based on the NCS. In this examination, the province achieved an overall pass rate of 71.8% in contrast to 70.4% in 2007. This represented an improvement of 1.4% in learner attainment in contrast to the decline of 1.6% in 2007 when the results went down from 72.2% to 70.4%.With the second Grade 12 cohort on the NCS in 2009, the pass rate declined from 71.8% to 69.4%.
Confronted with a decline in the pass rate in 2009, the Free State Department of Education adopted an approach that explored additional areas that needed to be targeted for the desired improvement in the schooling system. With this approach, the province achieved an improvement in the pass rate in 2010. The overall performance improved from 69.4% in 2009 to 70.7%. This performance represented an improvement of 1.3%.The 2010 NSC results provided a basis for further improvement relation to learner attainment in the NSC examinations, and the province set a target of 75% in the 2011 NSC examinations. The performance of the province improved from 70.7% to 75.7% in the 2011 NSC examinations.
Exam Papers
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General
- 2011 Supplementary Examination Arrangements
- Report on the National SCE 2011 – Diagnostic Report on Learner Performance