For parents
Uganda's curriculum changed. Report cards now show things like Outstanding, Moderate and a weight, where they used to show a percentage. Here is what those mean, in plain language. It takes about four minutes.
The old system asked: how many questions did the child get right? The new one asks a different question: what can this child actually do? So instead of one percentage, a teacher scores several separate skills — understanding the question, explaining causes, reading data, reaching a judgement — and each is scored on its own.
That is why the card has more words on it than it used to. The words are the information.
Wherever you see one of these, it is describing how well your child did:
| Level | What it means |
|---|---|
| Exceptional | Understood the task fully and handled it confidently |
| Outstanding | Clear understanding, well organised |
| Satisfactory | Understood a good part of it; some gaps |
| Basic | Partial understanding; needs support |
| Elementary | Limited understanding; needs a lot of support |
Basic is not a failure. It means the child has started and needs help to go further. That is a different message from "failed", and it is worth reading it as the different message it is.
If your child is in S.1 to S.4, you may also see marks out of 3 — like 2.4 — with a word beside them. That is the Activities of Integration scale. Three is the top. Anything at or above 0.9 is a real mark; below that means the child missed the activities rather than did badly at them.
A-Level grades now come from a weighted average. Each paper earns a weight from 1 to 5, the weights are added up and divided by the number of papers, and that average is the grade:
| Grade | Average weight |
|---|---|
| A | 4.6 – 5.0 |
| B | 3.7 – 4.5 |
| C | 2.8 – 3.6 |
| D | 1.9 – 2.7 |
| E | 1.0 – 1.8 |
One weak paper does not ruin a subject. If your child scores weight 5 in one paper and 2 in another, the average is 3.5 — a Grade C, a pass. A subject is only failed when the average falls to 1.8 or below, which takes low scores in every paper, not one bad morning.
If your child comes home discouraged after one paper, that arithmetic is the most useful thing you can tell them.
These get you further than "how is he doing?":
The class teacher's comment is written by someone who sees your child every day. If it says something specific — that they rush their work, or go quiet in group tasks — that is worth more than the average, because it is something you can act on.
If the card carries a QR code and a short code, you can check it yourself. Scan the code with your phone, or type the short code into the school's verification page. It confirms the card really came from the school and that the marks have not been altered since it was printed.
A note on comparing children. The new system describes what a child can do, not where they sit against the class. Two children can both be Outstanding. Position in class is still printed where a school chooses to, but it is the smaller half of the story.
Most parents received the new report card with no explanation at all. If this helped, send it on.
