Understanding the Student Passport

The Student Passport is an individual overview of a particular student's assessment results. An individualized hard copy of the Student Passport will be distributed to students for their personal awareness and reflection. Students can bring their passport home to share and discuss with their parents. The main value of this assessment is the learning that takes place not only during the assessment but also following the assessments during goal-setting sessions and while completing activities to reach their goals for physical literacy.

Each Student Passport contains a Student Profile and Assessment Results.

The Student Profile

The Student Profile reports the following information:

• How often the student is physically active:
• Canada's Physical Activity Guidelines for school-age children recommend participating in 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity each day including being active at a vigorous intensity and participating in activities designed to stengthen muscles and bones at least three days each week.

• The student’s intentions for being physically active:
• Students should apply different types of interventions/goals/strategies to help them improve their physical literacy. These options will be presented to them in their physical education class at school.

The Assessment Results

The Assessment Results section of each Student Passport contains the information collected through Passport for Life. It reflects important aspects of each student’s physical literacy based on the results of the Active Participation, Living Skills, Fitness Skills and Movement Skills assessments. 

In addition to information provided to students in physical education class, the Ways to Improve Physical Literacy section offers suggestions about how to improve physical activity participation.

Active Participation Assessment Tool

Active participation in physical activity is best represented across an entire calendar year so that it reflects the diversity of activities participated in during all four seasons (spring, summer, autumn, and winter). Activity choices and variety depend on one’s values and the opportunities available to them.

The Active Participation section assesses the application of physical literacy through a variety of behaviours, diverse activity selections and environments. Physically literate individuals tend to move enough to experience health and fitness benefits. They do a range of physical activities and are comfortable being physically active in a variety of environments including on ice, snow and land, and in the water and air. They participate in physical activity both indoors and outdoors, at home, at school and in the community.

Active Participation has no total “score.” The results are presented in two categories.

• Diverse Activities: The report shows the participation level for each activity category. It also gives the response to the question “Would you like to do more?” beside each type of activity. Look for missing or low activity categories to determine whether the need can be met in the home/community, school or both and whether the student is willing to do more if given the opportunity (i.e., his or her motivation).
• Environment: Be aware of what activity environments most and least frequently appear.

Living Skills Assessment Tool

The Living Skills section assesses skills that enable individuals to succeed in life. This section highlights the physical activity behaviours, motivation, self-regulation, awareness and interpersonal skills important for being active, healthy and well for life—all components of physical literacy.

Each category (Feeling, Thinking, and Interacting) is given a general level (Emerging, Developing, Acquired, or Accomplished) based on their survey results.

Fitness Skills Assessment Tool

Passport for Life uses the ABC (Aerobic, Balance, Core) Fit assessment structure. The structure is designed to foster a positive and challenging environment that inspires children and youth to be aware of and interested in their fitness levels and to take steps to engage in a lifetime of play, activity and exercise.
An aggregate level (see the table below) is provided for the student’s overall Fitness Skills assessment that is intended to reflect his or her fitness skills represented in each of these assessments:

• Four-Station Circuit (Aerobic/Cardiorespiratory Endurance)
• Lateral Bound (Balance/Dynamic Stability)
• Plank Challenge (Core Strength)

Movement Skills Assessment Tool

Fundamental Movement Skills are a core component of physical literacy. They provide the foundation—or building blocks—of more complex skills used in games, activities, sports and leisure pursuits. An aggregate level (see the table below) is provided for the student’s overall Movement Skill assessments:

• Run, Stop, Return (locomotion)
• Throw and Catch (object control)
• Kicks (object manipulation)