Testing and assessment

Purpose of assessment

The primary purpose of assessment is to improve student learning.

Assessment is used to promote learning through timely feedback that informs future teaching and learning and builds students’ confidence in their ability to learn.

Assessment is the purposeful, systematic and ongoing collection of information that is used as evidence in making reliable and consistent judgments about student learning and in reporting to parents. 

Assessment designed to fit the purpose

Teachers use assessment that is designed to meet three broad purposes:

1. Assessment for learning — enables teachers to monitor student knowledge, understanding and skills development so as to target their teaching to support students’ progress to meet learning goals
2. Assessment as learning — enables students to reflect on and monitor their own progress to inform their future learning goals 
3. Assessment of learning — assists teachers at the end of learning experiences to gather evidence of student knowledge, understanding and skills as described in the relevant achievement standards for the year level.

Assessment ‘for’ learning and assessment ‘as’ learning

Teachers continually monitor student learning through diagnostic and formative assessment and provide feedback that builds each student’s capacity to improve.

Student progress is monitored using a variety of assessment including:

• standardised, e.g. National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy [NAPLAN] and the Progressive Achievement Tests in Reading [PATR] and Progressive Achievement Test In Mathematics{[PATM] )
• diagnostic assessment (measures a student's current knowledge and skills for the purpose of identifying a suitable program of learning)
• focused observation 
• discussion 

At Coorparoo State School we have an Internal Monitoring Framework which clearly identifies the standardised and diagnostic assessments for the year for each year level.  We ensure data is consistently collected and recorded for comparability and analysis for student and teacher improvement, as well as curriculum enhancement.

Assessment ‘of’ learning

Assessment ‘of’ learning, or summative assessment, provides evidence of student learning against the relevant achievement standard for each learning area or subject. It provides the evidence for teachers to make reliable judgments about student achievement for:

• reporting to parents and students

All assessment enables teachers to provide timely and ongoing feedback that enables each student to monitor their own learning and develop achievable learning goals.

Planning for assessment Prep –12

The Australian Curriculum identifies content descriptions and achievement standards for learning areas at each year level. The achievement standard describes the expected knowledge, understanding and skills at each year level from F (Prep) to Year 10. Over a year the assessment program collects evidence of all elements of the achievement standard for the learning area or subject.

Marking guides

Marking guides, or guides to making judgments, accompany summative assessment tasks. They support teachers to make standards-based decisions about student work.

On-balance judgments using marking guides

Marking guides support teacher judgments about the quality of student responses against particular elements of an achievement standard.

Teachers award the student response an overall grade by:

• identifying the evidence for each assessable element/dimension
• matching that evidence to a particular descriptor for each assessable element/dimension
• considering each of these judgments together to make an on-balance decision about the overall quality that best matches the student response.

At the end of a reporting period these judgments about individual assessment tasks inform the teacher’s on-balance judgment to award an overall level of achievement in the learning area or subject.

Ensure consistency of teacher judgment

Consistency of teacher judgment relies upon consistent interpretation of the assessment task and an understanding of how the achievement standard is demonstrated in student responses. Coorparoo:

• Implements moderation processes each term for English and Mathematics to support consistency of teacher judgments and comparability of reported results.
• Ensures that there is a common understanding among all teachers about the process for developing or adapting assessments, making judgments and determining overall levels of achievement.

• English: Sequence of achievement V9.0
  
• Mathematics: Sequence of achievement​ V9.0