At a glance: A CBSE-affiliated residential school in Sikkim, with more than 750 students across boarders and day scholars, wanted to move from a conventional marks-only report card to NEP-style Holistic Progress Cards for every class. It faced a mass of guidelines but no concrete progress report to follow. Vawsum simplified it all into a card design every stakeholder could follow and that still adheres to CBSE guidelines. Vawsum consulted with the school on the framework, designed the cards for all classes to CBSE and PARAKH guidance, trained the teachers, and rolled the cards out through its Marksheet module. In the first year the school used the cards for its final examinations only. Now in its second year, it uses them for every examination. Feedback from parents, students and peers is still collected on paper, deliberately, so that every family can take part and not only the tech-savvy ones. Teachers key those responses into the system, so every response is now held digitally. Many schools have since modelled their own progress cards on this one, and the school is now seen as a thought leader in holistic assessment.
The problem
NEP 2020 asks schools to stop reporting a child as a column of marks. The Holistic Progress Card is meant to show the whole student: academic progress alongside life skills, creativity, values, health and physical development, with feedback from parents, peers and the students themselves as well as teachers. PARAKH has published stage-wise frameworks for it, and CBSE schools are expected to follow.
The school had no argument with the idea. As a residential school, its teachers see far more of many students than a day school does — in the classroom, on the field, at cultural events and in everyday life on campus. Its old report card had no place to record any of that. The holistic card was, if anything, a better fit for how the school already knew its students.
The difficulty was practical. The school was puzzled by the sheer volume of guidance: frameworks, teacher guides, stage-wise indicators and policy notes, but no concrete progress report it could simply adopt. The stage-wise frameworks are long, multi-domain documents. Turning them into cards for every class that teachers can actually fill in, every examination, is real design work. The school could see the risks: a card that is compliant on paper but unworkable in practice, a new round of paperwork for teachers who were already stretched, and a report too dense for parents to read.
There was also the question of who gets heard. A holistic card depends on feedback from parents and students, not just teachers. A purely online feedback form would have captured the families comfortable with apps and quietly left out the rest. That was not acceptable to the school.
From a marks-only report card to a holistic one
NEP-style progress cards for every class, designed to CBSE norms and used for every examination
From one exam in year one to every exam in year two
What changed
Vawsum’s role went well beyond software. It worked with the school through four stages — consulting, design, training and rollout:
- Consulting before configuration. Vawsum’s team worked through the CBSE and PARAKH holistic progress card guidance with the school, mapping each stage’s domains and indicators onto what the school wanted to report, so the cards followed the norms rather than a loose reading of them.
- A plethora of guidelines, simplified into one design. Vawsum distilled the guidance into a progress card that teachers, parents and students can all follow at a glance, without giving up adherence to CBSE guidelines.
- Cards designed for every class. A Foundational-stage card does not look like a Secondary-stage one, and it shouldn’t. Vawsum designed the school’s cards for all its classes, with indicators appropriate to each age group.
- Scholastic and co-scholastic on one card. Subject marks and grade-based co-scholastic areas sit side by side on the same report, so the holistic card adds to the academic record instead of becoming a second, separate document.
- Every stakeholder’s voice, without leaving anyone out. Feedback from parents, students and peers is gathered on paper, so any family can respond, whether or not it uses apps. Teachers then key the responses into the system. Collection stays inclusive, and the record is digital.
- Entry where teachers already work. Teachers fill in their part of the card from a phone or computer, one student at a time or in bulk through an Excel upload, in the same Marksheet module they already use for marks. Each teacher’s access follows the subjects and assessments assigned to them.
- Training and rollout. Vawsum trained the teachers on the new cards and supported the school through its rollout, first for the final examinations and then for every examination.
- A modern design parents can read. The finished card is clean and visual, with charts and graphs where they make progress easier to follow. Parents of boarders and day scholars alike receive it in the Vawsum app with a push notification, and the school can print cards in bulk whenever it needs physical copies.
The result
The school phased the change in deliberately. In the first year it used the holistic progress cards for its final examinations only. Teachers, parents and students got used to the new format on a single, high-stakes report before taking on more. In the second year, the current academic year, the school is using the cards for every examination.
That expansion is the clearest measure of how the first year went. Teachers, parents, students and management have all found the cards easy to work with and have been very happy with them, so the school had no reason to hold back. For teachers, the change was additional fields in a workflow they already knew, rather than a separate exercise bolted on at the end of term.
Every stakeholder response is now held in digital form. Feedback that once would have sat in paper files, or never been collected at all, is now part of each student’s record, and it was gathered in a way that gave every family a say.
The card has also travelled beyond the school. Many other schools have since modelled their own progress cards on it, and the school is now regarded as a thought leader in holistic assessment — a recognition that has made its management and teachers especially proud.
The bigger shift was in what the report card is for. A residential school already knows its students as whole people. The holistic progress card gave it a structured, CBSE-aligned way to say so. Vawsum’s part was making sure that doing it properly did not mean doing it painfully.
FAQs
Are Vawsum’s holistic progress cards aligned with CBSE norms?
Yes. The cards are designed against the CBSE and PARAKH holistic progress card guidance, stage by stage, and can be adapted to a school’s own design preferences without losing that alignment.
Why collect parent and student feedback on paper rather than online?
This school wanted every family’s voice on the card, not only the families comfortable with apps. Collecting feedback on paper and having teachers key it in keeps participation open to everyone while still holding every response digitally.
Does a school have to use holistic progress cards for every examination from day one?
No. This school started with its final examinations only and extended the cards to every examination in its second year. A phased start lets teachers, parents and students settle into the format first.
Do teachers need to learn a new system to fill them in?
No. Teachers enter holistic card details through the same Marksheet module they use for marks, from a phone or computer, individually or through an Excel upload.
Is this only for residential schools?
No. This school has both boarders and day scholars, and the same cards and workflow apply equally to day schools moving to NEP-style holistic reporting.
See related case studies: how a CBSE school in Siliguri fixed chronic late fee payment by linking admit card downloads to a fee-clearance cutoff, how a Bengali-medium school with zero computers went digital using nothing but phones and later grew into marksheets, and how a Kolkata residential school made hostel attendance verifiable with four daily checkpoints.
Want to read more about the framework itself? Our guide to Holistic Progress Cards under NEP 2020 explains how they differ from a traditional marksheet.
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