Grading Homeschool PE and Occupational Education

For subjects like PE and Occupational Education – which often don’t have a textbook – grading doesn’t usually involve tests or written work. Are you wondering how to evaluate your child’s learning without tests?

Grading Homeschool PE and Occupational Education

Grading homeschool PE and occupational education can be as simple as recognizing that your children are meeting your expectations, doing what is required, and completing their work. If they do, you can feel comfortable giving them an “A” for their work. In public school, these types of classes may be graded in terms of “effort” and I think it’s OK for homeschoolers to do this as well. For more on how to grade without giving tests, you can check out my YouTube video on Options for Grading Without Tests.

If you would like to see for yourself exactly how we graded PE classes and occupational education in our homeschool, you can purchase my Comprehensive Record Solution. I put it together for EXACTLY these kinds of questions. Parents want to see an example of how to grade classes like this: what to include, how to write a course description, how to determine grades, etc. Here is a sample page from the book using a regular American History class.

My PE and Occupational Education classes looked very similar. I wanted to put a grade for those classes on my children’s transcripts, but you don’t have to. You can’t be sure a college will use non-academic grades that you provide, because some colleges do and some colleges don’t. I just felt like it was my job to provide grades on the classes I taught, and my evaluations had as much credibility as any other school’s evaluations.  I put it on the transcript and let the colleges use it or not use it at their discretion.

Which classes do you evaluate using methods other than tests? Please share!

Please note: This post was originally published in August 2008 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.