Social Responsibility is an overarching goal of education that is developed, practiced, reinforced in all activities throughout the school day, as well as in family life; it is not assigned to a particular subject or curricular area. In 1997, the British Columbia Ministry of Education began developing performance standards in core areas of learning: Reading, Writing, and Numeracy. In response to requests from teacher and parent groups, a fourth area, Social Responsibility, was added. The Performance Standards: Social Responsibility are intended to provide educators, students, and families with a common set of expectations, along with materials for evaluating individual students, groups of students, or school populations. They were distributed, in draft form, to all BC schools in Spring 2000; they are also available at the Ministry of Education website:

The performance standards for social responsibility are organized into four clusters:  

• primary
• grades 4/5
• grades 6-8
• grades 8-10

At each level, materials include:

• a Quick Scale that describes four levels of behaviour: 
  •  not yet within expectations
  • meets expectations (minimal)
  • fully meets expectations
  • exceeds expectations
• a more elaborated Rating Scale that lists specific behaviours associated with each level of the scale
• sample “scenarios” from actual classroom and school incidents and samples of student work that illustrate the four levels described in the scales

Each of the rating scales includes four aspects of social responsibility:  

• Contributing to the classroom and school community
• Solving problems in a peaceful way
• Valuing diversity and defending human rights
• Exercising democratic rights and responsibilities

 The Quick Scales for Social Responsibility: Primary and Grades 4/5:

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/classroom_assessment/perf_stands/skto3.pdf http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/classroom_assessment/perf_stands/s4to5.pdf