FSA Updates

    • FSA online Field Test units will be available from November 19, 2012 to February 1, 2013.
    • FSA 2013 Live online administration will be available from January 14, 2013 to February 22, 2013.
    • Students will respond to multiple-choice questions online, and will respond to written questions on paper.
    • Updates have been made to the FSA Specifications, including Sample Questions and Scoring Guides. Examples of student responses have been added to the samples.
    • The Grade 7 Short Writing portion of the FSA has been changed to a Personal Response writing task.
    • The 2013 FSA has been developed to reflect a February administration timeframe.  In Reading and Writing, the materials and the questions were selected for a mid-year profile.  The Grade 4 Numeracy will continue to assess learning outcomes from K-4; the Grade 7 Numeracy will continue to address learning outcomes from Grade 7 and from previous years.  Generally, if a concept has been introduced in Grades 2/3 or 5/6 and is expanded upon in Grades 4 or 7, the concept is considered to be valid for inclusion on the 2013 assessment.
    • In order for students to demonstrate problem solving skills in numeracy, the numeracy written response questions may require students to solve problems in multiple parts and steps.
    • The 2013 FSA reports for individual students will be ready to send home, along with the students’ written response booklets, by the end of March 2013. School reports will be available before the end of the school year.  The 2008 FSA has been established as the baseline in reporting student performance for provincial, district and school reports.  Both student and school level reports will have four reporting categories of performance: not yet meeting expectations, meeting expectations, exceeding expectations and performance level unknown.

    Update on Scoring

    • All written-response questions for the FSA will be scored at the school or district level. Funding will be provided to support scoring activities.
    • The Ministry provides support for scoring/training that include:
      • A set of provincial exemplars using the 2013 student responses for the written-response questions in reading, writing and numeracy made available by the end of February 2013, and;
      • Scoring Guides and training papers posted online, and;
      • Scoring support via email.
    • A sample of FSA student response booklets from public and independent schools will be rescored in a summer monitoring session.