Edit Personal Growth Skills

Edit personal growth skills and assessment levels

Summary: The personal growth editor lets you customize the skills your school assesses and the assessment levels that describe each one, so they reflect how you observe children's development. You can add new categories and subcategories and change the assessment levels within each. This requires curriculum editing permission, which administrators and Teacher Curriculum Editors have. To reach the editor, confirm you have the Account Admin role in the upper-right corner, then open Personal Growth. The most important rule is ordering: each skill's assessment levels must run from least developed at the top to most developed at the bottom, because progress reports display only the highest level recorded in the report's date range.

Who can do this

Editing personal growth skills requires the right role. Here is who can and cannot do it:

• Account Owners and Administrators can edit personal growth skills.
• Teacher Curriculum Editors can edit personal growth skills in addition to managing their classroom.
• Teachers cannot edit personal growth skills. They can manage their classroom only.

The way to tell is the context switcher in the upper-right corner. If you can switch to Account Admin, you can edit personal growth skills. If you only see your classroom there, you do not have permission, and you will need to ask an administrator or a Teacher Curriculum Editor for help.

Step-by-step

1. Confirm your permission. Check that you have the Account Admin role in the upper-right corner. If you do, you can edit these skills.
2. Open Personal Growth. Go to Personal Growth to open the editor.
3. Add a category. Add a new category if you want to group skills differently — for example, by age group, such as Toddler Skills.
4. Add a skill. Within a category, add a subcategory. The subcategory is the skill itself (for example, Knows the daily routine). See "How skills and assessment levels are structured" below.
5. Add the assessment levels. Under the skill, add the assessment levels that describe a child's development of it. Add them in order from least developed to most developed. See "Order assessment levels from lowest to highest" below.
6. Check it in the classroom view. Switch to a classroom and open the Personal Growth Skills screen to confirm the new category, skill, and levels appear in the correct order.

How skills and assessment levels are structured

The structure can be a little counterintuitive, so it is worth being clear:

• A subcategory is the skill the child is developing — for example, work cycle endurance, the ability to endure a work cycle.
• The entries listed beneath the skill are the assessment levels that describe the child's ability at that skill.

So when you add a skill, you create a subcategory; when you describe how a child is progressing, you add assessment levels beneath it.

Order assessment levels from lowest to highest

Assessment levels are read in order from top to bottom: least developed at the top, most developed at the bottom. This ordering matters because of how progress reports work.

A progress report displays only the highest level of assessment recorded for the child within the report's date range. If your levels are flipped — highest at the top, lowest at the bottom — the system will treat the lowest level as the highest and show the wrong result on the progress report. Whenever you customize these levels, put them in the correct order, lowest moving to highest.

You can keep levels simple, such as seldom, frequently, always, or make them more descriptive. For example, the levels for "Knows the daily routine" might read:

• Unaware of what activity comes next in the day (least developed)
• Knows the routine but shows anxiety around transitions
• Knows the routine and transitions with ease (most developed)

Organizing skills by age group

As it comes, the personal growth structure does not take age into account — each skill is an ongoing progression of development. Some schools prefer to organize targeted, age-appropriate skills by age group instead. You can do that by creating a new category, such as Toddler Skills, and adding the skills you want for that age inside it.

A few things worth knowing

• The subcategory is the skill, and the entries beneath it are the assessment levels that describe it.
• Always order assessment levels from least developed at the top to most developed at the bottom, or progress reports will display the wrong level.
• Progress reports show only the highest assessment level recorded within the report's date range.
• A skill can have only assessment levels with no further detail; the levels can be as simple or as descriptive as you want.
• If you do not see Account Admin in the upper-right switcher, you do not have permission to edit personal growth skills. Ask an administrator or a Teacher Curriculum Editor for help.

Related articles

• User roles and the Account Admin area
• Edit curriculum and add custom lessons
• Edit trackers and add your own
• Recording personal growth skills for a child
• Understanding progress reports

Watch the video

Here is a short video covering this topic for additional reference.