A fundamental proposal of be.Living is to build knowledge. For children to build knowledge, they need to learn how to do it first. As a school, we understand that we have the role of experiencing all the steps of this process with them, which also includes evaluation and recuperation. Within this learning journey, the recuperation process is a child’s right: the school has the duty to teach the child, and the child has the right to recuperate what he or she has not yet learned.
In this sense, evaluations and recuperation are essential stages of student development. Here at be.Living, evaluations are systematic work that involves study guidance, evaluation activities and a review process of these activities.
The child’s entire experience at school during the assessed period will become part of his or her evaluation construct: if he/she accomplished the study guidelines and competencies, respected the established dates and deadlines, whether he/she executed a good evaluation activity and, during the review, whether the child has acquired the knowledge.
“Recuperation work is a part of the evaluation process. The evaluation that we perform is called formative because it is procedural and at the service of the student, which means the student is being evaluated the entire time within his/her own process and in relation to the objectives proposed by the curriculum. This means that we are closely monitoring the child on a daily basis, observing how he/she develops. Much of what the child shows in the evaluation is already being tracked by us. The purpose is for the children to understand that recuperation is an integral part of the evaluation. It is a necessary part of the learning process,” explains Gabriela Fernandes, be.Living’s Elementary School coordinator.
Gabi says that recuperation specifically aims to recover concepts, attitudes and/or procedures that the children failed to learn at a given moment. “This encompasses many factors: maturity, the exercise of procedure, and even conceptual learning itself. We consider all these aspects within the process. And when we propose formative assessment, recuperation also needs to be formative. It serves to recover any of the objectives that we have not satisfactorily achieved with the children.”
Gabriela explains that there are 4 construct levels: “AP” (Fully achieved the proposed objectives); “AS” (Satisfactorily achieved); “APAR” (Partially achieved) and “NA” (Did not achieve). These 4 constructs give the school a breadth of action for each case.
“When a child achieves APAR, that is, when he/she partially achieves the objectives, it means that extra time and attention are required, either extra time with teachers or extra time with him/herself. This begins in year three. Recuperation happens during working hours, at specific times organized by the teachers with the children and teaching assistants. It also occurs during AD time, which are the Diversified Activities when the children do other activities aimed at reviewing concepts that are pending, as well as activities based on procedure. And that’s when the child will regain the posture of a student.”
Gabi reiterates that recuperation takes into account not only areas of knowledge, such as mathematics, English, history, but also whether there is a procedure gap. “When this happens, we know that the child understood everything he/she had to understand, and what made him/her unsuccessful was the way he/she understands, how things are registered, how he/she conducts him/herself in the classroom… These are questions regarding the student’s attitudes or procedures, and in these cases we focus recuperation on that specifically. These are activities that will help them keep track of their schedules, register their work, and their classroom attitude toward their studies. These are times when they will be with the teachers and will have the opportunity to analyze what they did, how they did it, and what the procedures are that will help them perform that activity more or less successfully.”
The most important thing, according to the coordinator, is that the children understand that both the evaluation and recuperation processes are not a punishment, but are training processes. “To train is to teach children how to perform evaluations within the procedural aspects – which is to know how to do it; the attitudinal aspects – which are the attitudes necessary to experience a successful evaluation process, and the conceptual aspects – which is to know how to deal with that content and learn it. And within that, recuperation is a right. We do all this together with the children, so that they understand that together with the teacher, with all the necessary support, they can achieve even more.”