Assessment and reporting

At our school, assessment and reporting are guided by the standards-referenced framework set out by NESA, ensuring our practices are transparent, meaningful and equitable. Assessment serves three inter-related purposes: assessment for learning (to support ongoing growth), assessment as learning (to empower students to reflect on their own progress) and assessment of learning (to summarise achievement at key points).

Assessment

The Higher School Certificate (HSC) is an internationally recognised qualification awarded to students who successfully complete Years 11 and 12 in NSW. Throughout the HSC program, students complete a series of school-based assessment tasks that measure their achievement in each course. These assessments are designed in accordance with NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) requirements and contribute to the final HSC results.

The school’s policy aims to provide a fair system for all students.

It is designed to:

Assist students who would otherwise be disadvantaged by illness or misadventure.
Ensure that students cannot gain special consideration where this is not warranted.
Ensure that all appeals are dealt with fairly and consistently.
Promote and protect the best interests of all students.

The School is required to provide an assessment program for student achievements for each course presented. Assessment tasks are distributed across the year to provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and skills in a variety of formats, including written, practical, performance and project-based components. We adopt a range of assessment methods—both formative and summative—to gather robust evidence of each student’s achievement, provide timely feedback, and encourage active engagement in the learning process. Each task contributes to a student’s overall school assessment mark, which, together with the external HSC examination, determines their final HSC result.

The school's responsibility

In accordance with NESA’s requirements, this school has developed an Assessment Program for each course. We have:

Identified the student tasks that best measure the components
Specified weightings to be applied to each of the tasks to maintain the relative importance of each component
Scheduled the various tasks throughout the course
Prepared information for students, setting out the requirements of each course, and
Undertaken to keep records of the student’s performance on each task and provide information to the students on their progress.

The student's responsibility

Read carefully each faculty assessment schedule for each subject in your pattern of study and be aware of:
- The number and nature of the task for each subject
- The value of each task in comparison with the whole course
- The nature of each task, e.g., assignment, test, project, etc.
Sit for tasks at the time specified on the assessment schedule and assessment task notification.
Hand in tasks to the class teacher by the specified date and time on the designated date (as per the written task notification). Work submitted after this time will be classified as late.
Submit their tasks to the Head Teacher or Subject Coordinator if the class teacher is absent. Tasks should not be submitted to casual teachers or another teacher in the staffroom.
Follow the correct procedures if a due date is missed or an extension or special consideration is requested.

background

light

Reporting

Reporting takes place at structured intervals (twice per year), providing students and families with clear information about achievement and progress.

Year 11

We use the Common Grade Scale (A–E) as endorsed by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) and make professional ‘on-balance’ judgements based on multiple sources of evidence. The A–E grade scale best represents a student’s overall achievement in each course, and students also receive a rank that reflects their position relative to others in that subject at our school.

Year 12

Student achievement is reported through an overall assessment mark and rank for each course. These results reflect each student’s performance across all formal school-based assessment tasks completed during the Higher School Certificate (HSC) year. The assessment mark represents the student’s overall level of achievement, while the rank indicates their position relative to others in the same course at our school.

Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses are assessed on achievement of competencies.

We are committed to inclusive practice: all assessment activities are designed to be accessible to students with disability, with adjustments provided to ensure equitable opportunity to demonstrate achievement.

In this way, assessment and reporting at our school not only fulfil regulatory requirements but also actively support students to understand where they are in their learning, where they need to go next, and how they can get there.