| 1.1 |
The Foundations for Learning Campaign is a four-year campaign aimed at creating a national focus on improving the reading, writing and numeracy abilities of South African children.
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| 1.2 |
A key element of the campaign is the provision of nationally-set standardised assessments for literacy and numeracy.
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| 1.3 |
These annual assessments are conducted from Grades 1 to 6. The assessments commenced in 2008 and will be conducted annually until 2011.
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| 2. |
RATIONALE FOR THE ANNUAL ASSESSMENTS
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| 2.1 |
The assessments are aimed at:
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| 2.1.1 |
providing schools with model assessment tools for the development of quality assessment tasks at school level, and
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| 2.1.2 |
producing reliable data that can be used to develop appropriate support programmes for schools in different contexts and at different levels of performance.
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| 2.2 |
The Foundations for Learning assessments will be aligned with the "milestones" and will focus on assessing critical skills in literacy and numeracy.
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| 3.1 |
The national assessments for 2009 are scheduled for 2 - 6 November 2009 and must be written by all learners in Grades 1 to 6 across all provinces.
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| 3.2 |
The national Department of Education (DoE) will set the standardised tests for literacy and numeracy (Grades 1 to 3) and for mathematics and languages (Grades 4 to 6). The tests will be provided in the school's language of learning and teaching.
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| 3.3 |
One set of tests and memoranda will be distributed to each school in both hard copy and electronic format (CD) via the education district offices in the third term. Schools will have to make copies of the tests for their learners, and Education Districts are requested to ensure that all schools have sufficient copies for their learners.
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| 3.4 |
The DoE will provide the memoranda needed for the marking of the standardised tests.
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| 3.5 |
It is the responsibility of the school principal to ensure that teachers adjust their assessment programmes to include the administration and marking of these standardised tests and the recording of the marks.
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| 3.6 |
The results of these assessments should be captured as only ONE of the formal tasks of assessment for Grades 1 to 6, and must be used with other formally recorded results in determining the progression of learners.
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| 4.1 |
The WCED requests that all principals, school management teams, teachers and school governing bodies support this campaign.
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| 4.2 |
The target of each learner achieving at least 50% in literacy/languages and numeracy/mathematics at each school by 2011 will only be achieved if all role players involved are committed to improving the levels of literacy and numeracy among our learners.
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| 4.3 |
Further details regarding the marking, capturing of marks and the submission of the schedules to the districts will be communicated shortly.
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| 5. |
Kindly ensure that all teachers and parents are informed of the contents of this minute.
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SIGNED: T SINGH
HEAD: EDUCATION
DATE: 2009:07:14
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