With the brand new semester of 2026, it is back to start working on our new assignments as well as our summative assessments. As we are transitioning back to an academic mindset, it is important to remind ourselves of the grading criteria for our summative assessments. Read this article for a fresh reminder – some new information, and to have any questions answered about the grading system at ISB.
For the 2025-2026 school year, there were changes implemented within the different areas in ISB. Including new uniforms, as well as changes into the academic program. One of the major changes for the year altering the academic life of students is the changes into the academic policy. Within this area, there has been an update to the reassessment criteria. While there are “Student-initiated reassessment” policies – where students have the opportunity to initiate a retake for a summative assessment once per semester (for each class) there has been a new policy added which is the “Teacher-initiated reassessment”. According to the 2025-26 High School Student Handbook, the policy reads that “If the student has not reached proficiency (5) on a summative assessment in an ISB class (non IB/AP), the teacher will require the student to both engage in extra practice and to reassess.” This means that if the student reaches a grade below a 5, the teacher will require the student to retake the summative assessment. Depending on the teacher’s preferences, the reassessment paper will either be a completely new assessment or an altered version of the original assessment.
Dr. Mc Kenna, High School principal, states that these reassessment changes were implemented in order to help students in various areas – such as helping students with their needs of meeting the learning proficiency. In each subject, having students meet these set standards for their age group helps them to meet their current learning goals and helps them prepare for the future when these learning areas become more challenging.
However, with these changes – there may be some confusion around how this policy will remain consistent. With different subjects and different teachers, the type of assessments can differ which would mean that the way the teacher-initiated reassessment works could be less straightforward. For example, this could apply to AP and IB classes where students are not able to retest everything. For different classes, it could look different. In these cases it is important to consult with the teacher about the retesting process, as they are the ones who understand the curriculum. But the overall concept should be the same, where the student has multiple opportunities to show their learning and to motivate themselves to work harder to improve and reach the standard.
According to current high school students – this policy change is a stress reliever, as now they have the reassurance of knowing that if they end up scoring particularly low on a test, there will be an opportunity for them to improve their grade, at least up to a minimum standard. Although this change can relieve some pressure off of a student’s academic performance, students should not treat the reassessment opportunity as a way to decrease the time and effort to studying – and they should make sure to put in their best effort to prepare for their assessments in order to reach their best outcomes for tests.
Even though this change might make it seem like now the lowest possible GPA of a student would be a 5.0, it’s not quite true as not every single student will reach the proficiency level – even with the policy changes, especially in more challenging AP or IB classes. Overall, the purpose of this implemented change of reassessment policies is in order to give students the opportunities to demonstrate their improvement in understanding to further develop their knowledge of any subject – and to let them know that guidance is always available from their teachers when needed for improvements.
