State-wide moderation in Tasmanian Schools

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Australian Education Ministers' 2010 Biennial Forum

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Teachers in Tasmanian schools assess student achievement against standards articulated as a continuum across the years of schooling, from kindergarten to Year 10. Assessment information is harvested at a system level using the Student Assessment and Reporting Information System. The assessment data is collected and reported back to schools through the Statewide moderation process. Reports issued from the system provide teachers and Principals with an assessment history for each individual student, together with class and school summaries.

The Department of Education in Tasmania supports its teachers through a section of the Department called the Educational Performance Service. The teachers refer to that as EPS. In Tasmania we’ve had a unique student identifier for all students in the Government system for many years. It’s a very valuable piece of information that connects up all the information about the student and allows us, no matter where the student is going to school, to be able to track the student and provide the relevant information about that student. In EPS, the section that supports the teachers with data, they connect the student’s results in the NAPLAN tests to the teacher’s previous assessments of the students. Then they gauge where the student is achieving on a scale, and provide that information back as extra information to the teacher.

We use the data quite extensively because obviously we need to have a very, very clear picture of where the children are at, and then be able to plan future programs for them accordingly. We use an extensive range of data from national and State testings, such as Kinder Development Check and prep testing called PIPS, NAPLAN testing, but we supplement that with a lot of school based testing as well. During the reporting process itself I provide the staff with the updates as they come through from EPS. It gives me an opportunity to talk to the teachers and to ask them why they have rated the child, what evidence do they have. There may be a little bit of variation from what the model would say for that child, and what the historical data would have for the child. So it’s an opportunity for the teacher to actually be able to justify their ratings, but also to reflect on where that child might want to sit.

As a classroom teacher there’s a range of information that I collect when I’m assessing students. I use a range of classroom assessments of my own, as well as we have some school data that we collect, particularly around reading, literacy and mathematics. When it comes to assessing time I work out my ratings, and then I use the information that EPS send regarding my class to make sure that the students are pitching where they should be. The information that EPS send has historical ratings from their previous years as well as a predicted range for where they should be progressing in terms of information from NAPLAN and State wide PIPS testing, and previous things. The information from EPS also enables me to identify which students potentially haven’t moved over a number of assessment periods. It also comes colour coded so it’s easy to identify which students haven’t moved for one reporting periods, or a number of reporting periods. It also would then instigate, or trigger for me, the opportunity to go and talk or approach their previous teachers if I hadn’t already done so, and moderate some pieces of work across classes of teachers with the same grade level if need be.

What else helps you in today’s world?

It also helps with the transition and the ongoing movement of families in today’s society. So if the new student comes to me, I’m able to look back and identify how they’ve been assessed across a number of curriculum areas in the previous rating periods as well.

One of the real benefits of a lot of the data that we’re getting is that it’s diagnostic, and so consequently when we identify children who may need some additional support, we can actually drill down and find out more detailed information about where their strengths and weaknesses lie. Consequently we can use that to inform our teaching practice, to inform our planning, and to inform what sorts of aspects of the literacy and numeracy curriculum we need to focus on.

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