Primary school: goodbye descriptive judgements

The final countdown has begun for the descriptive judgments which will be replaced by synthetic ones, to the delight of parents and students.

The Minister of Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, returns to the past by eliminating the 4 descriptive judgments currently used. The terms “advanced”, “intermediate”, “basic” and “initially acquired” will give way to “Insufficient”, “Sufficient”, “Fair”, “Good”, “Distinguished” and “Excellent”.

The expert opinion

Three years after Minister Azzolina's law, much appreciated by teachers and pedagogists, the current government takes a step back, considering the descriptive judgments incomprehensible and in need of being replaced by clearer and simpler evaluations.

But pedagogists and teachers do not agree as they believe that i descriptive judgments are more accurate and able to evaluate children's skills and competences more comprehensively. Last month the school associations and unions had already signed a document in which they expressed their opposition to the return of numerical grades and now they once again express their doubts about the return of synthetic judgments and they ask the government to make more thoughtful and constructive reforms also considering the pedagogical point of view.