Making On-Balance Judgments
For each reporting period, teachers make on-balance judgments about student progress in relation to the standards. Teacher judgment is based on evidence gained from the range of formal and informal assessment tasks and learning experiences undertaken over the semester.
A high level of familiarity with the standards as well as other resources such as the assessment maps, progression point examples and the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development's domain continuums assist in making these judgments. Evidence should be of a high-quality gathered from tasks designed to enable students to demonstrate their achievement of the standards.
Consistency in judgments rests on a common interpretation of the standards within school teams. A shared understanding of what learner achievement against the standards look like will assist teachers in making on-balance judgments. This is best achieved through the process of moderation where examples of student work are used to highlight features that show work at the different progression point levels. Teachers then make overall, on-balance judgments about student progress on the continuum.
