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Descriptive grading for Kindergarten to Grade 3

No scores, no weights: dated observations through the term, then one descriptor per learning area — with the narrative per area in Grades 1 to 3, per term in Kindergarten.

One answer, with what teachers ask next on the same screen underneath it.

  • Say whether it helped at the bottom of the article. That is the only way we learn it is wrong.
  • Anything in a green box is what the DepEd order says; anything in amber is where teachers get caught.

Under DepEd Order No. 015, s. 2026 Key Stage 1 moves to descriptive grading, one grade level at a time: Grade 1 from SY 2026–2027, Grade 2 from SY 2027–2028, Grade 3 from SY 2028–2029. Kindergarten is descriptive throughout. The class wizard resolves this for you and says why; you never have to remember the schedule.

The descriptors

  • Kindergarten: Consistent · Developing · Beginning
  • Grades 1–3: Advancing · Benchmarking · Connecting · Developing · Emerging

There are no scores, no component weights and no transmutation table. A descriptive class has no class record at all — the sidebar shows Descriptors and Observations instead.

Through the term

  1. Open Observations.
  2. Choose the Learner, the Date, and what kind of Evidence it is — an observation, an anecdotal record, a learner output, a rubric result.
  3. Write what you saw under What you observed, in a sentence: "Read three sight words aloud without prompting."
  4. Press Log observation.

Short and often beats long and late. These notes are what you read when you assign the descriptor.

At the end of the term

  1. Open Descriptors and pick the learning area.
  2. Press Assign on a learner, or Edit to change one already saved.
  3. The term's observations for that learner sit beside the choices. Pick the descriptor. In Grades 1 to 3, write the Narrative with it — strengths, emerging competencies, next steps. About 60–120 words reads well; 1,200 characters is the limit, because it has to fit the report.
  4. Press Save descriptor.

In Kindergarten the narrative is not written here: it is one narrative report per term for the whole record, written at the foot of the Checklist page (feedback 09/10/2026). It prints on the card with a parent's signature space under each period.

What Key Stage 1 does not have

No academic awards, no rankings, and no retention on academic grounds. The document is the Learner's Progress Report, not SF9, and recognition belongs in the narrative.

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