Assessment and Reporting
A guide for school planning
Assessment for the Victorian Essential Learning Standards requires a mix of summative assessment of learning to determine what the student has achieved, formative assessment to inform the next stage of learning that will occur, and ongoing assessment which focuses on teacher feedback alongside student reflection and self-assessment.
It is a constructive process which looks back as needed to make judgments about progress, but is primarily designed to help the student learn more effectively and the teacher to contribute to student learning. It provides students with an opportunity to display the knowledge, skills, understanding and attitudes they have developed and motivates them by recognising what they have accomplished. When it then is shared between teachers, assessment also contributes to better understanding of each student's development over time, and how best to ensure they will improve.
Seen in this way, assessment is not an end in itself, but rather a means of educational improvement.
An integrated approach
The essence of the Victorian Essential Learning Standards is the integrated focus on knowledge, skills and behaviours in the three strands of Physical, Personal and Social Learning, Discipline-based Learning, and Interdisciplinary Learning that together develop deep understanding in learners which can be transferred to new and different contexts.
Assessment of students must reflect this by evaluating performance in an integrated way, rather than treating each and every standard as discrete. This not only ensures a more efficient approach to student assessment that avoids unnecessary duplication of assessment tasks and subsequent reports, but also more clearly reflects how students actually learn.
When students undertake an historical inquiry as part of a class project for History, for instance, they can be assessed not only on their historical knowledge and skills, but also in terms of:
- the interdisciplinary knowledge and skills of Thinking Processes, Communication and design concepts in Design, Creativity and Technology, and perhaps Information and Communications Technology (ICT), depending on the nature of the research undertaken and the subsequent presentation mode(s)
- the personal and social knowledge and skills related to Personal Learning, Interpersonal Development, and Civics and Citizenship where appropriate to the topic assessed.
Similarly, the design and conduct of a set of scientific experiments aimed at testing a particular theory in Science can provide the basis for assessing specific scientific knowledge and skills, and also a range of interdisciplinary and personal and social capacities related to Thinking Processes, ICT, Personal Learning and more.
Assessment is part of the overall process of whole school curriculum planning required to weave the three learning strands together, in ways which meet the essential learning requirements of all students along with local community expectations and needs.
Whole school curriculum planning enables the school to determine how best to link the different Physical, Personal and Social, Discipline-based and Interdisciplinary standards in ways appropriate to the programs they provide and their overall efforts to ensure that students develop in all three strands. It will also help ensure that the amount of assessment in the school is appropriate and does not impede student learning by overloading students with assessment requirements, or affect the quality of teaching through an excessive number of assessment tasks.
Stages of Learning
The Standards recognise the differing learning needs of students at three stages of learning. Statements about the general characteristics of learners at each of these stages can be found in Stages of Learning.
Levels
The Victorian Essential Learning Standards include standards for student achievement at six levels over the 11 years of compulsory schooling. Additional information about characteristics of learners at the six levels can be found in About the Standards in the P-10 Curriculum and Standards section.
