How to Prepare for State Tests: Six Essential Tips for Success

For both teachers and students, state testing is like competing in the state championship game. They’ve worked hard all year to reach their goals, and now they get a chance to show what they’ve accomplished throughout the year.

Across the school, there’s a sense of urgency in every classroom. It’s a time of excitement, nervous energy, and stress.

Great school leaders leverage the natural intensity before state testing to push their students and staff to achieve outstanding results.

However, without direction, that intensity can turn into anxiety and have a negative impact on students and staff. At this time of year, leaders should develop a clear path to testing success.

Here are six ways that you can help lead your school to gear up for state tests.

Communicate the testing schedule.

Make your testing schedule visible for staff and students. Print it on posters and hang them in the halls. Ask teachers to write the date on the whiteboard. Print the schedule on paper and send it home with students. They should get a constant reminder about the state tests everywhere they look.

Prominently displaying the testing schedule helps create a sense of urgency in students and staff.

At Scott Central, we purchased large countdown clocks that showed the days, hours, minutes, and seconds left until state tests. Students saw these countdown clocks every time they passed the office.

Switch classroom instruction into test review mode.

Students need not only to know the content, but they also need to have practice demonstrating their content knowledge in the way that they will be assessed. They need practice with the various item types they will encounter on test day. It’s no wonder that the top scorers on college entrance exams take those tests multiple times throughout their high school careers.

Exposure to item types will help students answer those types of questions correctly on test day.

Also, make sure teachers are teaching calculator “tricks” and testing strategies specific to the test they are going to take. Students need to feel confident when they enter the testing room.

Determine a remediation strategy.

Some students still need extra support before test day. Most likely, the students who teachers have already been working with will need the most remediation.

Find times to work with students who are close to their goals and who are willing to put in the effort needed to reach success. School time is limited, so be creative. Teachers could use time before school, after school, or during lunch to meet with these students for remediation.

Next, be very selective about which students will receive extra time and resources leading up to state tests. We should give all students a chance to succeed, but if there are some that have shown little to no effort throughout the year, it will be better to focus attention on other students who are more likely to be successful. Then, after state testing, the low-effort students can receive remediation.

Engage parents.

Parents want their children to perform well on state tests, but they may not always know how to help them. Make it easy for parents–provide resources and ask them to make sure their children use those resources at home. Some teachers may benefit from asking parents to sign off assignments completed at home.

In addition to report cards and individual score reports, send something personalized home to parents. The more genuine your teachers are in their parent interactions, the more likely parents are to support the teachers’ efforts in the classroom.

Parent phone calls are highly effective. Encourage teachers to pick up the phone and call parents of students they are concerned about. If there’s ever a question about whether a particular student’s parent should be called, then teachers should go ahead and make that call.

Promote collaboration.

All classes are important, but right before state testing, state tested classes should be prioritized. Are there ways that non-state tested classes can support state tested classes? Ask teachers to collaborate so that students can be more prepared on test day.

In a history class, students could read passages and answer questions that support ELA state tests. Science classes could include lessons on academic vocabulary.

When all classes are geared toward state tests, then students get the sense in every class that testing is important and that they should do their best.

6. Stay positive.

Be supportive and encouraging to all students and teachers. Testing can create healthy pressure, but when the pressure becomes too much, it can also create anxiety.

Always build your people up. Sometimes just a simple “I believe in you” or “You’ve got this” is enough to push people over the hump.

I like to write encouraging notes to struggling students and give them out on test day. I have no way to measure whether that last bit of encouragement affects student performance, but students have reported that it’s nice to receive a handwritten note from their principal before they take their test.

What about you? What are some ways you help your campus gear up for state testing?

Let me know in the comments below!