1.2 School-Based Assessment: The Six Internal Components

1.2 School-Based Assessment: The Six Internal Components

Quick Summary: The Internal Assessment, also called School-Based Assessment (SBA), is worth 40% of the CPEA mark. CXC's official handbooks name exactly six internal components: the Project, the Book Report, the Writing Portfolio, practice in "Can-Do" Skills, Self-Assessment / Pupil Tests, and Teacher-Prepared Tests. All six are gathered during the school year and moderated by CXC.

Why the Internal Component Exists

A 50-item multiple-choice paper can test whether you recognise a correct answer. It cannot test whether you can plan an investigation, read a whole book and respond to it, redraft a piece of writing after feedback, speak clearly to an audience, or work with classmates. The internal component exists to assess exactly those things.

CXC builds the CPEA on two stated principles:

1. Formative assessment raises performance for all pupils, and raises it most for pupils who are struggling.
2. Pupils improve when they assess their own work and their classmates' work, and when parents are involved in their learning.

That is why self-assessment and peer assessment are not optional extras in the CPEA — they are built into the model.

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The Six Internal Components

1. The Project — One Project, Four Literacies

The most commonly misunderstood component. CXC is explicit: "pupils will complete a single project that integrates language, mathematical, scientific and civic literacies." There is not a separate mathematics project, science project and civics project. There is one project that pulls all four together.

Suggested investigation themes include how things grow, how things work, different uses of things, festivals, and democracy. CXC's own worked example uses the topic Festivals and Celebrations, and shows how a single topic reaches every literacy:

• Mathematical: tables, charts and graphs, calculations, shapes, fractions, percentages and proportions.
• Scientific: classifying materials by type and property, choosing materials for costumes or instruments, observing, measuring, recording data.
• Civic: researching the origin of the festival, customs and practices, seeing an issue from another person's point of view.
• Language: interviews, speeches, and listening, speaking, reading and writing throughout.

A project is a study of a particular topic that requires you to conduct your own investigation and requires you to present the results — orally, in written text, and using diagrams, charts and pictures.

2. The Book Report

You read a book and prepare a report on it. CXC states plainly that "the content and length of the book report can vary depending on your pupils" and that the mode of presentation can vary too. A book report may be written, spoken aloud, or presented visually.

Features CXC lists for a book report: the title and author, why you chose that book, the main character with description and importance, other characters and their roles, and your personal response — words and phrases you admired, characters you liked, with reasons drawn from the text.

Presentation options CXC suggests are unusually wide: write a poem about a character, dramatise a speech, stage a short play, turn a favourite scene into a script, build a timeline of events, design a book cover, create a soundtrack and CD cover, interview a character in pairs, film a news report from a scene, or turn the book into a comic.

3. The Writing Portfolio

A collection of your writing assembled to show the writing process and your progress over time — not just polished final pieces. CXC lists the contents of a writing portfolio as: a table of contents, objectives, checklists, rubrics, work samples, your teacher's written feedback, a reflection, and a self-assessment.

Note what that list implies: the teacher's feedback and your own reflection are part of the portfolio, not separate paperwork. CXC states that the number of pieces to include "should be made based on the individual classroom" — there is no fixed national number of required pieces.

The Forms of Writing You Must Produce

The official CPEA Language Arts standards name the Writing target as "expressing oneself legibly and accurately" in specific forms of writing, and require you to use different forms of writing appropriately. Know what each form is for:

The same standard also requires you to use basic grammatical sentence structures correctly, spell common polysyllabic words accurately, and punctuate accurately using full stops, capital letters, question marks, commas, apostrophes and inverted commas — which is precisely the content of Chapter 4 of this guide, and precisely what the Language Arts external paper tests through multiple choice.

Finally, the standard asks you to use strategies to revise work, change ideas and rewrite sentences for clarity. That is why the portfolio keeps your drafts: the evidence of revision is itself part of what is assessed. Never throw away a marked draft.

4. "Can-Do" Skills

"Can-Do" Skills are the key concepts (what you should know) and skills (what you should be able to do) for each literacy — Language, Science, Mathematics and Social Studies. Your teacher designs short tasks under a formative framework, and you must show mastery in tangible, measurable ways.

CXC's stated purposes for Can-Do tasks: collect evidence of skills you have mastered, let you use the vocabulary of each subject literacy, give regular practice of key skills, identify the parts of a topic pupils find difficult, and show both teacher and pupil what to do next. Feedback is given immediately after each task.

5. Self-Assessment and Pupil Tests

Groups of pupils write the test items themselves, and their classmates then sit those tests individually and independently. Your teacher tells you which item types are acceptable — for example multiple choice or short answer — and what content to cover, then collates the tests.

Writing a good question forces you to know the material better than answering one does, which is precisely why CXC includes it.

6. Teacher-Prepared Tests

Your teacher builds tests using both selected-response items (multiple choice, true/false, matching) and constructed-response items (fill in the blank, short answer, essays, performance tasks). When assembling a test, teachers are directed to develop a table of specifications, give clear instructions, avoid unintended clues, and use appropriate vocabulary.

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Where Listening and Speaking Are Assessed

The official CPEA Language Arts standards include two Listening and Speaking targets — listening for main ideas, cause and effect and sequence; discriminating between Creole and Standard English according to place and circumstance; speaking confidently for a variety of purposes; and taking turns in discussion.

No multiple-choice paper can assess those directly. They are captured in the internal component instead: in the oral presentation of your book report, in the spoken presentation of your project findings, in "Can-Do" speaking tasks, and in peer discussion. Treat oral work as marked work, because it is.

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A Warning About Invented Rubric Percentages

You will find websites that quote precise internal marking splits — for example "planning 25%, content 50%, presentation 25%". CXC does not publish such a national percentage breakdown for the CPEA internal components. Teachers apply CXC criteria together with territory and school guidance. Ask your own teacher for the rubric being used in your classroom rather than trusting a number from an unofficial site.