Assessment and Reporting in Nunavut Art Without a Provincial Exam

Quick answer: Nunavut has no confirmed territory-wide graduating exam, so an art mark rests entirely on the record you build in the classroom. Assessment runs against the outcomes stated in your grade's Nunavut Education Program materials, with Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit running through all of them. Plan tasks that show the skill and the principle together, and write the evidence down as it happens.

What is art assessed against in Nunavut?

The Nunavut Education Program is guided by the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit Education Framework, and IQ is not a separate unit sitting beside the curriculum. It runs through the whole of it, which changes what a strong art task looks like: alongside the technical outcome, the task should show which principle it works through, described the way your school's own materials describe it.

Announced for 2025-26, a new curriculum in Inuktut is reaching schools while the existing K-12 program stays in use, so some grades hold two sets of materials at once. Check which document your grade reports against before you write outcomes into a plan, because the wording you quote in a report comment should match the version your school actually uses.

How do I build a mark without a territorial exam?

Graduation in Nunavut runs on a credit-based system administered through the Department of Education, and no universal territory-wide graduating exam is confirmed. That places the whole weight of a mark on classroom evidence. Evidence of that kind is strongest when it is small, frequent and dated: a photograph, a line of what the student said about the work, a mark against one named outcome.

Printable Garland Craft – Final Touch Activity for Grades K–4 earns its place early in a term for exactly this reason. It finishes in one session for kindergarten through grade 4, costs almost nothing in materials, and gives you a first dated sample from every student on the list. Open the folder with it, then let the harder work sit on top of a record that already exists.

What about senior students and thin supplies?

Materials are a planning constraint in Nunavut before they are an artistic one. An order placed months ahead of the term decides what a class can make, and a project depending on one specific material is a project that can fail for reasons which have nothing to do with your teaching. Conceptual work sidesteps most of that risk.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude – Wrapping and concept art takes grades 9 through 12 through wrapping and concept art, where the idea, the proposal and the documentation carry the work rather than expensive supplies. Students can wrap what is already in the building, photograph it, then write the reasoning, which yields three kinds of assessable evidence from one project and a display that costs nothing.

How do I report this to families?

Write comments from the folder rather than from memory. When each entry carries a date, an outcome and one sentence about what the student did, a report comment assembles itself in a few minutes and says something specific about that child. Families can tell the difference between a comment written about their child and a comment written about the class.

If you are covering a full senior art course rather than a single term of it, Complete Art Education Bundle for High School Teachers supplies the whole sequence with assessment tasks already attached. Nunavut teachers looking for material by grade band can start from the unit lists on Nunavut Curriculum Teaching Resources (K–12), and the pages for the other provinces and territories are gathered on Canadian Curriculum Navigator: Resources by Province.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a territorial exam students have to pass in art?

No universal territory-wide graduating exam is confirmed. Graduation follows a credit-based system administered through the Department of Education, so an art credit is earned on the strength of coursework. Keep the folder of dated evidence behind each credit, because it is what answers a question about a mark once a student has moved on.

Are these units matched to the Nunavut Education Program?

They are written as general art units and you match each one to the outcomes in your grade's materials, which takes a line per project in your plan. These are independent teaching materials. They are not affiliated with, approved by or endorsed by the Department of Education or any other authority.

How do I show Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit in a task rather than bolting it on?

Start from the principle as your school's materials describe it, then choose the task, rather than the other way round. A collaborative build, a project using what the community already has, or work made for somebody else's use will carry the principle honestly. Note which one you intended in your plan.

Related reading

• Nunavut Art: Planning a Unit to the Nunavut Education Program
• Nunavut: Teaching Art on No Budget
• Nunavut Curriculum Teaching Resources (K–12)