Assessment & scholastic decisions
Is your child ready for assessment and scholastic decisions?
Candice’s educational assessments began in pre-school with an interview and an observation. The area in which they lived had no mandatory pre-school requirements. On registration day, Candice and her mother came to school and were interviewed briefly. A teacher rated Candice’s cognitive and socio-emotional skills. Her development was judged normal, and she started attending pre-school.
During the year, she experienced difficulty in paying attention and participating in group activities, although she was neither aggressive nor hostile. She was given the ‘school readiness’ test at the end of pre-school and performed as an average child. Her teacher recommended that she attended Grade 1, but her parents balked: They didn’t think she was ready.
They took her to an educational psychologist and requested further psychological assessments. The educational psychologist administered an individual intelligence test and a “projective test” in which Candice was asked to tell a story about what was happening in a set of pictures. The psychologist interviewed her, her parents and the teacher. The results described her as normal, both in cognitive ability and in social-emotional development.
Her parents withdrew her from the school she was attending and placed her in another school to repeat pre-school. Later, the parents reported that whereas her first experience was difficult for her, her repeat year was a great success. At the beginning of the year all the learners Genetic Brain Organisation profiles were assessed determining that Candice had sensitive left ear dominance. She was placed with a soft spoken and sensitive teacher who was particularly sensitive to Candice’s needs and helped her to accelerate her cognitive development and did extra work in creating opportunities to minimise her sensitivity for tone of voice and auditory feedback and build Candice’s self-esteem. By the end of the year she had become more confident and participated normally in group activities.
The moral of the story is that throughout a learner’s school life they will be subjected to continuous psychological and formative assessments. Understanding the child’s Genetic Brain Organisation Profile (GBP) will assist in determining potential learning challenges and sensitivities. Imagine a child with a genetic left eye dominance who will naturally read from right-to-left in a test situation where long text base questions need to be analysed? Understanding the GBP and especially the child’s sensitivities which will indicate their potential stressors will proactively pre-empt such and assist in potential remediation and awareness. Thus eventual self-esteem problems and underperformance can be avoided or at least minimised.
