Grade 7

Starting this month, there will no longer be any such thing as a “First Year High School” in the Philippines. Instead, there will be “Grade 7.”

What is Grade 7 and what difference does it make?

First of all, the change in name is not merely a change in name. It signals the beginning of a major reform in Philippine secondary education. Of course, that reform is part of the bigger K to 12 project of President Aquino, but even by itself, Grade 7 is a paradigm shift.

Let us look at some of the implications of Grade 7.

The most obvious one is the attempt by the Department of Education (DepEd) to dismantle what has been called the “Berlin Wall of Philippine Education.” Before this month, primary or elementary education was considered to be completely different from and even irrelevant to secondary education. That “wall” was cemented by geography and architecture: the campuses of public elementary schools and those of public high schools were usually separate and far apart.

Within DepEd, the existence of two massive organizations – the Bureau of Elementary Education and the Bureau of Secondary Education – with their own complement of experts and administrators led to a disjunction between elementary and secondary curriculums. What students took up in First Year High School tended not to be based on what they had learned in Grade 6. The two bureaus still exist, but since the K to 12 program started, they have worked with each other in formulating what is called “the seamless K to 12 curriculum.”

In fact, because of the existence of the Steering Committee (President Aquino’s organizational way of bringing various government departments together, including the education committees of the Senate and the House), even the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has been forced to take into account what DepEd has been doing. In the current General Education Curriculum, for example, as all students know but all administrators choose to ignore, algebra is a required subject, even if algebra is already taken up in high school.

By renaming the next year level after the last year of elementary school, DepEd has planted the idea that there is no qualitative difference between Grade 6 and Grade 7. Students do not suddenly become different by becoming one year older.

The second implication follows from the first. The grading system is now the same for both Grade 1 and Grade 7. Eventually, in fact, when the entire K to 12 curriculum is implemented, the grading system will be the same from Grade 1 to Grade 12.

The new grading system is radically different from the previous ones. Students will now receive letter grades rather than number grades. These letter grades, incidentally, are not the same as those in some private colleges or in other countries (where B is the next best grade to A). In the new grading system, the letters correspond to different levels of achievement of students in performing real-life tasks.

Here is the grading system as mandated by DepEd Order 31, series of 2012:

B for Beginning (“the student struggles with his/her understanding”).

D for Developing (“the student needs help throughout the performance of authentic tasks”).

AP for Approaching Proficiency (“the student, with little guidance from the teacher and/or with some assistance from peers, can transfer core understandings through authentic performance tasks”).

P for Proficient (“the student can transfer fundamental knowledge and skills and core understandings independently through authentic performance tasks”).

A for Advanced (“the student exceeds the core requirements in terms of knowledge, skills and understandings, and can transfer them automatically and flexibly through authentic performance tasks”).

Since Filipino teachers are not yet ready to think qualitatively but are still used to giving number grades, the DepEd Order gives equivalent numerical values to the letters: 74% and below is B, 75-79% is D, 80-84% is AP, 85-89% is P, and 90% and above is A. This equivalency, however, is only temporary. Once teachers get used to thinking qualitatively, the numbers can and should be dropped. (After all, in universities in America, teachers instinctively know when a student deserves an A or a B.)

The third implication also follows from the first. The subjects in high school now follow the nomenclature of the subjects in elementary school. The subjects are Filipino, English, Mathematics, Science, Araling Panlipunan, MAPEH, and Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao (EsP). In addition, Grade 1 has a subject called Mother Tongue, and Grade 7 has Technology and Livelihood Education (TLE).

The fourth implication of Grade 7 has to do with private schools. Before this month, there were still a few private schools that required a so-called Grade 7, which was actually a nice way of saying to parents that their children were not yet ready for high school. With the renamed and official Grade 7, no private school will now be able to offer that extra year. Private schools will now be forced to improve their teaching in order for all children (not only the bright ones) to get to the next grade.

The biggest change with Grade 7 has to do with teaching. All the subjects (not only Mathematics and Science) are now spiralled. In fact, all subjects starting from Grade 1 are now spiralled. (To be continued)