Expectations of Teaching Staff
Private schools are inspected by the Ministry of Education with respect to the standard of instruction in the school. To ensure that the school is in compliance with the Ministry of Education’s requirements, there are specific expectations of the teacher.
The Ministry of Education expects teachers to:
1. Teach the provincial curriculum expectations, and assess and report them in accordance with the Ministry of Education’s policy. Curriculum police documents can be found at: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/secondary/
2. Ensure that their classroom practices with respect to assessment and evaluation comply with the Ministry of Education’s policies outlined in Program Planning and Assessment. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/secondary/progplan.html
The school expects the teachers to:
1. Maintain a course of study for each course, which is subject to inspection by the school’s administration and by the Ministry.
2. Follow a course outline approved by the school and by the Ministry of Education and provide the appropriate section of the outline to students.
3. Maintain daily or unit lesson plans which are subject to inspection by the school’s administration and by the Ministry which contains at a minimum:
a) Curriculum expectations
b) Teaching and learning strategies
c) Assessment strategies
Teachers may wish to use the Course Profiles to support their planning. http://www.curriculum.org/occ/profiles/profiles.shtml
4. Follow the attendance procedures established by the school.
5. Support the expectations that have been established for students.
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Student Protection Act – Highlights
The Ontario government passed The Student Protection Act in June 2002. It affects all members of College, as well as employers of certified teachers in Ontario, including tutoring services, private schools and school boards.
Employers must remove from the classroom a teacher charged with or convicted of sexual offence with minors, or an offence the employer believes may put students at risk. This includes temporary teachers not licensed by the College working on letters of permissions from the Ministry of Education.
Teachers should be aware that members should avoid the following as it could lead to the removal of the teacher’s certificate:
· Any sexual relations regardless of the students age;
· Any remark of a sexual nature regardless of the age of the student or any apparent consent of the student;
· Sending intimate letters to students; making telephone calls of a personal nature to student;
· Engaging in sexualized dialogue through the Internet with student;
· Inviting students to their home;
· Seeing students in private or isolated situations;
· Exchanging personal notes, comments or e-mails;
· Giving personal gifts to students;
· Sharing personal information about themselves with students; and
· Making physical contact of a sexual (or assumed sexual) nature.
When meeting with student’s teachers should always ensure that:
· Classroom and office doors are left open;
· A third party is present or aware of the meetings
· The student is not physically isolated from other observers, for example, behind close doors; and
· They are not alone with an individual student except in urgent or emergency circumstances.
The Student Protection Act amends the Teaching Protection Act in that a member who makes an adverse report about another member respecting suspected sexual abuse or a student by that or other member or need not provide him or her with a copy of the report.
PD Tips
Assessment and Evaluation: Defining the Terms and Tracking Achievement
Ministry of Education Policy
1. “The primary purpose of assessment and evaluation is to improve student learning. Assessment is the process for gathering information from a variety of sources. Evaluation refers to the process of judging the quality of student work on the basis of established criteria. Assessment and evaluation will be based on the provincial curriculum expectations and the achievement levels.” (Program Planning and Assessment)
2. “All curriculum expectations must be accounted for in the instruction, but evaluation focuses on students’ achievement of the overall expectations. A student’s achievement of the overall expectations is evaluated on the basis on basis of his or her achievement of related specific expectations. The overall expectations are broad in nature, and the specific expectations define the particular content or scope of the knowledge and skills referred to in the overall expectations. Teachers will use their professional judgment to determine which specific expectations should be used to evaluate achievement of the overall expectations, and which ones will be covered in instruction and assessment but not necessarily evaluated.” (Assessment and Evaluation of Student Achievement).
Assessment is Formative and is:
Ø Connected with instruction: during a unit of work, teach specific expectations/assess them, teach specific expectations/assess them, teach specific expectations/assess them.
Ø Used to measure progress by identify strengths and weaknesses and by providing descriptive feedback and/or additional instruction to help students improve their achievement of the specific expectations in a unit.
Ø Varied (i.e. not only knowledge) so that students have different ways to demonstrate achievement of the specific expectations in the unit.
Ø The material (e.g. quizzes, discussions, group work, and other assignments) that is used to measure students’ progress during a unit of work.
Ø Not sued for grading and does not normally contribute to the final mark.
Ø Diagnostic: i.e. helps a teacher understand where students stand in relation to curriculum expectations. For example, if students have difficulty taking notes, a teacher can emphasize this skill over the course of the unit.
Ø Recorded as marks or as anecdotal comments and is tracked separately from evaluations.
Evaluation is Summative and is:
Ø Making a judgment and assigning a mark or grade to the student’s achievement at the end of a unit of work or end of term.
Ø Using specific expectations to evaluate the overall curriculum expectations.
Ø Used to measure achievement.
Ø Using more than once category of the achievement chart to mark a piece of work; a rich evaluation will include all four (K,IC,A) and is normally marked with a rubric.
Ø Tracked by category and each category has a weighting. (See attached form for tracking evaluations.)
Ø The material (e.g. tests, presentations, essays ad other assignments) that counts towards the final mark.
A Few Notes about the Final Grade:
Ø Everything that is marked does not need to be included in the final grade.
Ø The final grade is a percentage mark that represents achievement in all 4 categories.
Ø The final grade represents the student’s most consistent level of achievement over the term.
Ø In calculating the final grade, give attention to the student’s more recent result.