About Grading

The purpose of a grading system is to give feedback to students so they can take charge of their learning and to provide information to all who support these students—teachers, special educators, parents, and others.

The purpose of a reporting system is to communicate the students’ achievement to families, post-secondary institutions, and employers. These systems must, above all, communicate clear information about the skills a student has mastered or the areas where they need more support or practice. When schools use grades to reward or punish students, or to sort students into levels, imbalances in power and privilege will be magnified and the purposes of the grading and reporting systems will not be achieved. This guide is intended to highlight the central practices that schools can use to ensure that their grading and reporting systems help them build a nurturing, equitable, creative, and dynamic culture of learning.

The effects of the grading system on students has positive and negative attributes. While it’s useful to have grades to understand how a student is performing, it could cause detrimental side effects like lowering their own self-worth.

With education, the primary focus should always be to expand one’s knowledge and understanding so they can apply what they learn in real-world situations. It’s clear this is doable with or without grades, but the system is so inherently linked with grades that it’s hard to imagine education without the A-F ranking.