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Case Studies / The Cedar School

The Cedar School, Pakistan

How we brought Insight to The Cedar School

The Cedar Family

Growing from the Cedar College, the Cedar School is a newly established secondary school in the city of Karachi, Pakistan.

Taking a holistic approach from Grade 6, learning at the Cedar School takes on Cambridge Global Perspectives and leads into interdisciplinary studies.

Rukaiya Salman as Head of School takes us through how Cambridge Insight assessments have supported their teachers and students.

"Bringing Insight into the Cedar family was a hugely exciting opportunity and a way of improving education outcomes in the school.

"Our aim was to use Cambridge Insight assessments with Cedar School students as well as new applicants, as they measure a child’s potential and progress, which is a very valuable part of understanding and responding to their educational needs.

"Insight assessments inform teachers where intervention may help improve student outcomes, giving teachers a deeper understanding of the learning environment seen by children and young people.

"Baseline assessments measure:

  • Verbal skills
  • Non-verbal skills
  • Mathematic skills

Research has shown that these skills form the foundations of learning."

Baseline and diagnostic assessments add huge value to Cambridge International Schools and the quality of the assessment is widely recognised in the UK and globally."

Introducing Insight tests during the pandemic

"The baseline assessment runs on a laptop or a computer and is carried out with a teacher with a few students in a quiet room.

"We initially used it in February 2020 with our new admission applicants for the batch 2020-2021.

"We had only conducted a few tests for new admission applicants by the end of February when the panic started to storm up due to the worldwide spread of Covid-19 and schools closed down.

"Cambridge International announced that exams had been cancelled all over the world to protect the safety of students and teachers. An update shared in April 2020 provided guidance for schools awarding grades. We were ecstatic to hear that we were allowed to gather information from baseline tests such as Yellis.

"Since it was not safe to call students on campus during the pandemic, we shifted the Cambridge Insight tests online.

"Over a span of two weeks we were able to conduct baseline tests successfully remotely, where the students were invigilated by the members of our administration staff. The reports were shared with grade 10 and 11 teachers and the parent body through an electronic folder."

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Insight helps 9th graders with Subject Selection

"Cambridge IGCSEs align students with 21st century skills and offers the Cambridge ICE (Cambridge International Certificate in Education) award, which demonstrates student competences.

"The MidYIS IPR gives a visual picture of a student’s assessment result, helping teachers to identify strengths and weaknesses of each student and adapt their teaching accordingly.

"The predictions table is particularly helpful for students and teachers as it shows the most likely grade a student will achieve in each subject when final exams have been taken.

"The Chances Graph is also useful as it helps parents to understand the realistic likely achievements of their child, illustrating different chances of success in different subjects, thus aiding them in option choices for selecting subjects.

"In order to find out how our students and school are expected to perform, the Subject Chances Graph option is very beneficial."

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This graph summarises likely overall performance in each subject and helps in subject and departmental target setting.

How Insight has helped the Cedar Family

"Yellis has been of great help to our Cedar Team, students, and parents especially, since the pandemic.

"The Individual Pupil Record (IPR), part of the baseline feedback, gives a visual picture of each student’s score in every section of the test."

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"The Standardised Scores report shows how each student has scored in comparison to others of the same age who have taken the same assessment.

"The grade predictions also show the most likely grades a student will achieve in their IGCSEs. The prediction is based on what the majority of students with similar baseline scores achieved when their final exam was taken.

"The best part is that there is a ‘Teacher Adjustment’ feature available, so the predictions can be adjusted to Cedar School’s own requirements.

"Many other options in the Yellis reports, such as Scatter Graphs, can be used to identify areas where groups of students are over or under-achieving relative to subject averages."

The single thread running through all the grading decisions at The Cedar School has been Cambridge Insight assessments."

Why I believe that Cambridge Insight is an asset for any Cambridge School

"Cultural differences, various educational backgrounds, meeting individual needs and measuring impact are challenges faced by all schools.

"At The Cedar School, we have students coming in from a range of educational backgrounds. This means that we need a baseline test that is actually as culturally-free as possible, and one that does not rely on what students have been previously taught.

"Insight feedback helps you understand the individual abilities so that we can make changes to the curriculum to meet individual needs.

"Using Insight as part of the whole-school approach to assessment means that you can get a snapshot, a measure of each students’ ability, whenever they arrive, and you can ensure that you provide a curriculum that is best fitted to their needs.

"It is important to bear in mind that Insight assessments are only one lens through which to view the ability of the student. We triangulate this data with the results of other internal assessments, with our wider knowledge of each student’s learning journey and capabilities.

"The single thread running through all the grading decisions at The Cedar School has been Cambridge Insight assessments.

"It has been a vital tool with so many benefits, from setting standards and raising expectations, to helping us support students and staff, to measuring school performance."

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Insight reports not only help predict grades but also aid in selecting the right subjects for your child and that is why we incorporated this handy tool into our school system."

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About the author

Rukaiya Salman is currently the Head of School at The Cedar School.

She graduated from LUMS (Pakistan) in 2006 and became a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) a few years later. Working in the corporate sector for a few years and in the educational field for almost 12 years now, has been an incredible growth experience for her. In 2015, she successfully completed the Post Graduate Certificate of Education International (PGCEi) from University of Nottingham. In 2018 and 2019, she was a Delegate at Cambridge Schools Conference held in Cambridge, UK. Rukaiya has recently met all of the criteria to be accredited as a Cambridge Programme Leader for the Cambridge International Certificate in Educational Leadership.

 

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