Standards-Based Report Cards in PE: How We Made It Work
What’s up, PE Friends!
I’ve shared before about how our district uses standards-based report cards, and every time, I hear from someone whose district is considering making the switch. If that’s you—wondering what this looks like in PE or searching for examples—you’re in the right place!
I put together this resource to show how we implemented standards-based report cards in our district and to walk you through the process we used to make it work for PE (and all related areas).
Before we get into it, I wanted to let you know that we also turned this post into a PODCAST if you would rather listen to it, you can do so here
Why Standards-Based Report Cards?
Moving to a standards-based grading system provides more meaningful feedback to students and parents. Instead of just assigning a grade with little context, these report cards help communicate:
✅ What specific skills or standards a student has mastered
✅ Areas where a student is still developing
✅ Clear expectations for success
While it does require more effort from teachers, this system ensures that parents understand what their child is learning in PE and how they are assessed. It also reinforces the value of PE as an academic subject and highlights the important skills we teach—something that can often be overlooked in traditional grading systems (or when no grade is given at all).
Disclaimer and Non-Negotiables
If your school district is trying to implement Standards Based report cards, the first non-negotiable is providing planning time to teachers. Without it, managing this system would be nearly impossible.
The second would be providing reasonable class sizes.
So if you are in a situation where your are teaching an do not have any planning time and teach classes of 60+ kids by yourself then I wouldn’t even consider this because it’s not reasonable or appropriate for those conditions and will simply be an impossible system to successfully pull off. These types of scenarios are more like a guided recess than an actual PE Class in my opinion.
I teach roughly 500 students and have a daily planning period and still find it a struggle to manage inputing all my grades and report card comments at the end of each quarter
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Our Process for Implementing Standards-Based Grading in PE
Here’s how our district developed and implemented standards-based report cards:
1️⃣ Collaboration & Brainstorming
- All elementary PE teachers in the district met to discuss and identify the most important standards to include.
- We considered which standards best represented student learning across multiple units and grade levels.
2️⃣ Trial & Refinement
- We tested our initial report card structure and met again to get feedback and discuss what was working and what we wanted to change
- After some discussion, we revised the language and standards to better suit our needs and those of our students
3️⃣ Creating “I Can” Statements
- We transformed our selected standards into student-friendly “I Can” statements to help make the language understandable to parents
- Example: Instead of “Demonstrates locomotor skills,” we used “I can skip, hop, and gallop with control.”
- Helpful Resource: “I Can Statements for PE Class“
4️⃣ Defining Success Criteria
- We outlined what success looked like for each standard so parents could understand how mastery was determined.
5️⃣ Grading Scale & Rubrics
- Our district uses three grading categories:
- Meets Expectations
- Progressing Toward Expectations
- Unable to Meet Expectations
- We met together and discussed what it would look like for each category in relationship to each standard and then created district-wide rubrics to ensure consistency in assessment across schools.
Things to Consider When Implementing Standards-Based Grading
💡 It’s an Ongoing Process
- Our standards and rubrics have evolved over time as we’ve refined what works best.
- Any time our state updates PE standards, we revisit our report card criteria and standards and discuss if we want to make any changes or updates to stay relevant to current standards
💡 Balancing Detail vs. Feasibility
- More detailed reports are great for parents, but with 500+ students, assessing six standards per student per quarter would be overwhelming (3,000+ assessments!), so it’s more doable to find standards that apply to multiple units and use less – you can provide more specific feedback in the comment section of the report card as needed
- We decided to focus on three key standards per grade level—ones that could apply across multiple units and utilize the report card comments to provide more specific feedback when needed.
💡 Flexibility in Assessment Timing
- We don’t assess every standard every quarter. Our policy is that each standard must be assessed by the end of the year, but teachers have the flexibility to decide when to assess. There are some standards that we do assess each quarter, but providing the flexibility for teachers to choose when to assess each standards was important to make the system doable.
💡 Progress Over Perfection
- Grades are communication plain and simple. It shows parents and students what their students know and are able to do. It helps them understand their strengths and areas for improvement. If we can focus on using standards based reports with this in mind vs always striving for perfection on all assessments, we will be in a more healthy place and kids will be able to gain a better understanding about where they are with their skills and PE Knowledge.
What About Some Report Card Examples?
Below you can download some examples of our Standards Based Report Cards, of course the standards will need to be revised to match your state standards, but you can use ours as a model if you’d like
Final Thoughts
To be clear I hate doing grades, it’s definitely one of the least favorite parts of my job and without proper planning time to input grades I wouldn’t consider making a push towards standards based report cards.
To see an overview of my process for managing my grades check out the post below:
How to Manage Grades in Elementary PE
Assessing kids and recording grades DOES TAKE TIME and that time and focus comes from quality instruction time. If there is too much of a focus on assessment (ahem, the current state of standardized testing in schools) there becomes a lack of time for teachers to teach and instead of learning each day kids get tested to death.
There is a healthy balance between providing feedback and communicating with students and parents about where they are with their knowledge, skills and behavior and having the bandwidth to teach kids skills, connect and have fun with them in class.
Transitioning to standards-based grading in PE takes time, but it can be worth it. It provides transparency, validates what we teach, and helps parents and students see the value in our PE programs and have more clarity about what their kids strengths and weaknesses are in the realm of Phys Ed.
If your district is considering the switch, I hope this guide gives you a solid starting point!
Do you already use standards-based report cards?
What has worked for you?
Hit us up on your favorite Social Channel and let us know — Let us learn from your experiences!
