While many aspects of high school life may have returned to normal in Simcoe County, there is one aspect that is not returning this June: final exams.
Officials from both the Simcoe County District School Board and the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board have confirmed that final examinations will not be taking place for high school students in June, and both boards will instead be continuing to use alternate assignments as year-end assessments for students.
“During the pandemic, with school closures and some students learning remotely, we moved to away from exams in favour of CCTs (course culminating tasks),” said Pauline Stevenson, manager of communications and strategic initiatives with the SMCDSB.
Stevenson said the move was necessary first semester due to rising COVID-19 rates.
“Although things are becoming more normalized at school, we wanted to ensure we were creating an equitable situation for all students,” she said, noting students taking the same courses in first or second semester needed to be held to the same standards to ensure equity.
“Our approach this year was to slowly and cautiously return to a more typical school year, and part of that includes holding off on final examinations,” she said.
The public school board officially announced they would not be running traditional final examinations at the secondary level back in August 2021, and also decided to hold firm on that decision for the remainder of the school year.
“This is what we did in first semester, and we didn’t want to do anything differently in second semester,” said Dawn Stephens, associate director of education with the SCDSB. “We wanted to have consistency in practice.”
Stephens says she doesn’t have concerns about a potential impact when students are preparing to attend post-secondary schools next year. Thanks
“It’s not the same as it was two years ago, five years ago or 10 years ago. Things are different, and students do have multiple opportunities to write tests and study for tests. They gain those test-taking skills,” she said.
Looking ahead, Stephens says no decisions have been made yet on whether exams will return in the 2022/23 school year.
“I think the pandemic has shown us some positive things that can occur with secondary assessment and we’re reviewing that. We’ll continue to (review) that going into next year,” she said.
