CIE Qualifications
Academic Qualifications
| Upper Secondary 16-18yrs |
|
|---|---|
| Middle Secondary 14-16yrs |
|
| Lower Secondary 11-14yrs |
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| Primary 5-11yrs |
Vocational Qualifications
Teaching Qualifications
Cambridge Checkpoint
Overview
The launch of Cambridge Checkpoint, an innovative new diagnostic testing service, marked a major landmark in the development of assessment services for the international school.
A unique service and an invaluable tool for schools and colleges, it enables access to standardised tests that provide feedback on a student’s strengths and weaknesses in key curriculum areas. Feedback of this kind is an invaluable source of information. Schools and colleges will be able to make strategic decisions, drawing upon a pool of information and specialist reporting tools built in to Cambridge Checkpoint. Students at international schools will have a transferable indication of their academic progress. Rapid turnaround of feedback, within four weeks of receipt, will ensure that the information returned can be put to immediate use.
Cambridge Checkpoint tests are also ideal for use at the end of the Cambridge Lower Secondary Programme.
What are the options?
Cambridge Checkpoint tests are available in English, Mathematics and Science and are to be offered at two sessions during the year. The service is aimed at students of approximately 14 years of age studying mid-secondary curricula. The tests cover all major areas of learning required in the first years of an international secondary education. It is these topics/skills and sub-topics/skills that provide the framework for feedback on each student.
| English | Mathematics | Science |
|---|---|---|
| Reading | Number | Biology |
| Explicit meaning | Properties | Cells and organisms |
| Select and summarise | Problem solving | Humans as organisms |
| Comment on character | Data handling | Plants |
| Implicit meaning | Variation and classification | |
| Use of language | Ecosystems | |
| Writing | Algebra | Chemistry |
| Structure | Manipulation | Materials |
| Style | Graphs | States of matter and physical change |
| Audience | Chemical change | |
| Content | Periodic table | |
| Usage | Space | Physics |
| Sentence Structure | Measure | Measurement and properties of matter |
| Punctuation | Geometry | Forces and motion |
| Vocabulary | Trigonometry | Energy |
| Spelling | Light | |
| Sound | ||
| Magnetism | ||
| Electricity |
Cambridge Checkpoint Feedback Documents
The diagnostic reports generated by Cambridge Checkpoint will enable Centres to:
- Tailor individual students’ learning programmes
- Monitor group and individual performance
- Provide information for reporting to parents
- Compare the performance of all students taking tests in that session
- Manage learning programmes within Centres as students move between Centres
- Predict performance in students’ formal examinations
The test feedback measures a student’s performance against a number of variables including how a student performed in relation to:
- The curriculum framework
- Their teaching group
- A whole school cohort
- Previous years’ students
The diagnostic reports come in four forms. The first three – the reports to the students, the reports on teaching groups, and the report on the Centre – will be sent within four weeks of the date when scripts are received at CIE. The fourth report – the end-of-session report on the entire cohort of candidates – will be issued after all of the students’ marks have been processed.
The report on a candidate gives:
- A Cambridge Checkpoint score for the whole subject
- A Cambridge Checkpoint score for each main topic/skill
- A list of the questions (and the sub-topics/skills) where the candidate’s performance was particulary strong or particularly weak
- An attractively presented statement of achievement
The report on a teaching group gives:
- An average Cambridge Checkpoint score for the whole subject
- An average Cambridge Checkpoint score for each main topic/skill
- A list of sub-topics/skills with comments on the performance of the group
- The Cambridge Checkpoint scores of each candidate on the subject and on each main topic/skill
- The marks scored by each candidate on each question
The report on a Centre gives:
- An average Cambridge Checkpoint score for the whole subject
- An average Cambridge Checkpoint score for each main topic/skill
- A list of sub-topics/skills with comments on the performance of the students
The end-of-session report gives the results of the whole cohort, from all centres, broken down by age and first language, so that Centres may compare their own results with those of similar candidates from elsewhere. The report will also give the examiner’s comments on the test.
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