From syllabus to subject result

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Queensland’s system of senior assessment is changing.

From 2020, Year 12 students’ subject results will come from their achievement in three school-based assessments and one external assessment, set and marked by the QCAA that will provide more information on student achievement.

There’ll be new processes to strengthen the quality and comparability of the school-based assessments.

The Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre (QTAC) will calculate tertiary entrance ranks by comparing student results across subjects.

We’ll be keeping some important features of our current system:

• Teachers will continue to play a major role in developing assessments, making judgments about student achievement, and independently reviewing the work of their colleagues.
• Students will be assessed using various assessment techniques that count towards their final subject result.

From 2019, new syllabuses will define course content, inform teaching, specify standards and outline assessment requirements. Teachers will be supported with professional resources, such as marking guides, sample assessment instruments, and examples of student work.

In line with syllabus requirements, schools will develop three assessment instruments for each senior subject. The quality and validity of these assessments will be verified by the QCAA through two new processes — endorsement and confirmation. Before school-based assessments can be used in classrooms, they will need to be endorsed by expert assessors who have been accredited by the QCAA.

Schools will then teach and assess their students. QCAA will independently check and confirm a sample of assessments in every subject in every school during Year 12 to ensure the grades awarded by teachers are fair and accurate. Reviewers will receive specialist training to fine-tune their skills and highly accomplished assessors will monitor their work.

While schools are teaching and assessing, they’ll also be preparing their students for the external assessment. External assessments will be developed by a team of discipline experts, including teachers and academics. Markers will be engaged by QCAA and will receive special training.

They will be monitored and reviewed by senior markers and QCAA. External assessment will be:

• common to all schools
• administered to schools at the same time, usually towards the end of a course of study, and
• marked by QCAA using a common marking scheme.

After confirmation and external assessment marking have been completed, QCAA will determine each student’s final subject result by adding the results from the school-based assessment and external assessment.

The results on the external assessment won’t be used to scale the school-based assessment results.

Students will access their results from their online learning account. Subject results and other learning, such as vocational education and training qualifications, will be reported to students, with eligible students receiving a Queensland Certificate of Education.

Subject results and other learning that can contribute towards tertiary entrance will be provided to QTAC so that it can be scaled to calculate new ranks called ATARs. The ATAR replaces the OP. These new processes are all part of QCAA’s commitment to deliver a more valid and reliable system of senior assessment.