Clancy Catholic College

Clancy Catholic College,

West Hoxton

Assessment Policy

Revised January 2011

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Preamble

Clancy Catholic College aims to promote the growth of the whole person through a planned, balanced and relevant school curriculum by recognising the qualities, potential and dignity of each student.

The school promotes and encourages students to learn and to develop skills, attitudes and values that will enable them to grow as individuals and become responsible and successful members of society.

Assessment is one of the significant means of inspiring and assisting growth in students. At Clancy Catholic College, the assessment methods and procedures adopted are aimed at providing every student with the opportunity to demonstrate their talents and abilities, and challenging them to meet their full potential.

The purpose of an Assessment Policy is to ensure that all requirements of the NSW Board of Studies are met, students have the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, knowledge and values and that the expectations of the school are transparent, understood and clear. This Assessment Policy is based upon the Assessment Guidelines and Requirements of the NSW Board of Studies and the Catholic Education Office (Sydney) Learning Framework.

The Years 7–10 syllabi advocate assessment for learning, as this is a type of quality assessment that has had world-wide success in enhancing teaching and improving student learning. Assessment for learning gives students opportunities to produce work that leads to development of their knowledge, understanding and skills. Teachers decide how and when to assess students’ achievements, as they plan the work students will do, using a range of appropriate assessment strategies including self-assessment and peer assessment.

In summary, assessment for learning:

·  is an essential and integrated part of teaching and learning;

·  reflects a belief that all students can improve;

·  involves setting learning goals with students;

·  helps students know and recognise the standards for which they are aiming;

·  involves students in self-assessment and peer assessment;

·  provides feedback to help students understand the next steps in learning and plan how to achieve them;

·  involves teachers, students and parents in reflecting on assessment data.

Assessment Resource Centre, Board of Studies,

General Principles for Planning, Programming, Assessing, Reporting and Evaluating

The Principles of Assessment for Learning

These principles provide criteria for judging the quality of assessment material and practices. They appear below as they do in each of the syllabi.

Assessment for learning:

·  emphasises the interaction between learning and manageable assessment strategies that promote learning;

·  clearly expresses for students and teachers the goals of the learning activity;

·  reflects a view of learning in which assessment helps students learn better, rather than just achieve a better mark;

·  provides ways for students to use feedback from assessment;

·  helps students take responsibility for their own learning;

·  is inclusive of all learners.

The document, Quality Assessment in Sydney Catholic Schools, grounds this framework from the Board of Studies in the experience and tradition of Catholic schools.

At Clancy Catholic College, the basis of quality assessment is considered to be:

-  a dynamic relationship between the student’s response to learning opportunities;

-  the evidence of learning that is demonstrated;

-  the teacher’s action in response so as to build further learning.

Curriculum Differentiation

CURRICULUM DIFFERENTIATION is a broad term referring to the need to tailor teaching environments and practices to create appropriately different learning experiences for different students. Keirouz (1993) suggests typical procedures in the case of gifted and talented students include:

·  deleting already mastered material from the existing curriculum;

·  adding new content, process, or product expectations to the existing curriculum;

·  extending the existing curriculum to provide enrichment activities;

·  providing course work for able students at an earlier age than usual; and

·  writing new units or courses that meet the needs of gifted students.

Maker’s (1982a, 1982b, 1986) model suggests that the curriculum needs to be differentiated in terms of:

1. Learning environment: the aim is to create a learning environment that encourages students to engage their abilities to the greatest extent possible, including taking risks and building knowledge and skills in what they perceive as a safe, flexible environment. It should be:

·  Student-centred – focusing on the student’s interests, input and ideas rather than those of the teacher;

·  Encouraging independence – tolerating and encouraging student initiative;

·  Open – permitting new people, materials, ideas and things to enter and non-academic and interdisciplinary connections to be made;

·  Accepting – encouraging acceptance of others’ ideas and opinions before evaluating them;

·  Complex – including a rich variety of resources, media, ideas, methods and tasks;

·  Highly mobile – encouraging movement in and out of groups, desk settings, classrooms, and schools.

2. Content modification: the aim is to remove the ceiling on what is learnt and use the student’s abilities to build a richer, more diverse and efficiently organised knowledge base. This building can be facilitated by encouraging:

·  Abstractness – with content shifting from fact, definitions and descriptions to concepts, relationships to key concepts and generalisations;

·  Complexity – with content shifting to inter–relationships rather than considering factors separately;

·  Variety – with content expanding beyond material presented in the normal program;

·  Study of people – including the study of individuals or peoples, and how they have reacted to various opportunities and problems;

·  Study of methods of inquiry – including procedures used by experts working in their fields.

3. Process modification: the aim is to promote creativity and higher level cognitive skills, and to encourage productive use and management of the knowledge the students have mastered. This can be facilitated by encouraging:

·  Higher levels of thinking – involving cognitive challenge using bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Processes (1984), logical thinking and problem solving;

·  Creative thinking – involving imagination, intuitive approaches and brainstorming techniques;

·  Open-endedness – encouraging risk-taking and the response that is right for the students by stressing there is no one right answer;

·  Group interaction – with highly able and motivated students sparking each other in tasks, with this sometimes being on a competitive, and sometimes on a cooperative, basis (depending on the task and its objectives);

·  Variable pacing – allowing students to move though lower order thinking more rapidly but allowing more time for students to respond fully on higher order thinking tasks;

·  Variety of learning processes – accommodating different students’ learning styles;

·  Debriefing – encouraging students to be aware of, and able to articulate, their reasoning or conclusion to a problem or question;

·  Freedom of choice – involving students in evaluations of choices of topics, methods, products and environments.

Using these principles when establishing a Course Assessment Program

Establishing a course assessment program begins when units of work are programmed. By incorporating assessment activities into units of work, the needs, interests and abilities of students can be determined, while assessing a student’s achievements to the outcomes of the course.

Programming units of work should follow this process:

·  identify the focus outcomes for the unit of work;

·  decide on the subject matter or focus of the unit of work;

·  determine the evidence of learning that is required and how students will demonstrate this in relation to the outcomes;

·  consider how the evidence will be gathered and recorded;

·  select the relevant syllabus content for the identified outcomes for the knowledge, understanding and skills the students will develop;

·  plan the learning experiences and identify the assessment strategies required to provide the evidence of learning;

·  ensure a range of assessment strategies in different forms are used and that meaningful feedback can be communicated to students;

·  provide opportunities to reflect on student progress and modify future learning experiences accordingly.

Procedures for the Distribution of Assessment Tasks

·  All students must be given a minimum of two weeks’ notification for all assessments.

·  Assessment dates are to be forwarded to the Curriculum Coordinator by Week 3 of each semester. The Curriculum Coordinator will then review and approve the Assessment Calendar for each semester.

·  Assessment Calendars are distributed to students at the beginning of each semester. All formal assessments for each Key Learning Area must be included on the calendar.

·  Assessments must run according to the dates on the Assessment Calendar. Any change to dates or to the nature of the task must be approved by the Curriculum Coordinator. Any change must be accompanied by written notification to the students concerned.

·  Students must sign a register or class roll to acknowledge receipt of the assessment notification. Teachers are required to keep a record of the notification.

·  All formal assessment tasks must use the standard Assessment Notification or Assessment Cover sheets. These include the following information:

-  subject name;

-  due date of task;

-  type of task;

-  outcomes to be assessed (and reported on);

-  equipment required;

-  submission instructions;

-  declaration of originality;

-  description of the nature of the task.

·  Clear and detailed marking criteria must be attached to the task, giving guidance as to the skills to be demonstrated for the student to achieve at each level of the common grade scale.

·  The terminology of the common grade scale must be used in the marking criteria.

·  Assessment tasks and notifications are to be posted on myclasses.

·  The Special Education Department must be provided with a copy of the task at least ONE (1) week prior to distribution to create any required modifications for students with specific learning needs.

·  Key Learning Area (KLA) Coordinators need to inform the Special Education Department, General Coordinator and Curriculum Coordinator of the needs for an assessment task, e.g. if Reader/Writers are required, an additional examination room and supervising teacher is necessary, along with regular special provisions for the task.

Submission of Assessment Tasks

At Clancy Catholic College we strive to ensure fairness and consistency when distributing and collecting formal assessment tasks. All Key Learning Areas formally assess the students in a variety of forms, e.g. examinations, fieldwork, research, oral, ICT and practical assessments. To assist each student’s organisation and to ensure consistency across all subjects, the following procedure is applied when collecting submissions that are formal assessment tasks:

·  Students are expected to seek assistance from their class teacher before the due date. Any concerns regarding the task and a student’s ability to submit it on time must be brought to the teacher’s attention BEFORE the task is due. This expectation is clearly stated on the Assessment Notification Sheet that is distributed with the task.

·  Students who are absent on the day a formal assessment task is due must provide appropriate documentation verifying their absence.

·  In Years 10-12, the Board of Studies requires a Doctor’s Certificate accompanied by the task on the first day of a student’s return to school to prevent a penalty from occurring.

·  In Years 7-9, the College expects students to be present at school on the day a task is due. Students who are away will require a note from their parents verifying their absence. This, accompanied by the task, must be submitted to the class teacher on the first day they return to school.

·  The submission requirements of an assessment task will be clearly stated on the cover sheet. Students must follow how and when to submit their task to ensure tasks are not late and do not incur a penalty.

·  Students are required to sign a register or class roll as a receipt of their submission.

·  Students are expected to submit their Assessment Cover Sheet and Marking Criteria with the task. This must be signed, stating that the work submitted is their own and not plagiarised.

·  A ‘Non-submission’ is noted on the register/roll for students who are present, but do not have an assessment task. This is followed up by the KLA Coordinator and a “Non-submission” form is presented to the student as appropriate. This requires the student to complete an after-school detention and submit the task by the end of that detention. Any note regarding the non-submission is to be attached to the register/roll.

·  It is the responsibility of students who arrive late to school to submit the task to their class teacher (not their Pastoral Teacher). Students are NOT permitted to submit their task to the Front Office.

·  It is the responsibility of students to ensure they are organised and prepared to submit a task. Students who forget their assessment are NOT permitted to contact home to have it arrive at school by the end of the day. The Assessment Notification clearly states that “a student’s lack of organisation is not a valid excuse for late submission”.

·  Students who plagiarise a task or submit a non-serious attempt will receive a “Non-submission” form as well. This requires the student to complete an after-school detention and a re-submission of that task as a consequence. It is the responsibility of the KLA Coordinator to issue this “Non-submission” form and a copy needs to be given to the Curriculum Coordinator and relevant Year Coordinator for their records. A student who does not follow the assessment procedures is ineligible for Yearly Subject Awards.

·  Students continually not submitting tasks require an interview with their parents and the Curriculum Coordinator to discuss their ability to apply themselves with diligence and meet the outcomes of the course.

·  Students submitting a practical task, e.g. a major work in Visual Arts or TAS, are required to follow the expectations of the KLA Coordinator for that subject. These tasks need to be submitted to the subject classroom, e.g. Art Room, and received by the Class Teacher. These students are still required to record their submissions by signing a register or class roll. The same rules and regulations apply for students who are late, absent or do not submit a task.

Extensions

An extension is the permission for a student to submit an assessment task on a later date than the one originally set. Extensions are granted under extenuating circumstances where the student has been disadvantaged because of illness or misadventure. Students who require an extension must seek the permission from the relevant KLA Coordinator BEFORE the task is due. The KLA Coordinator (or Curriculum Coordinator) is the only person who can grant an extension. The request for an extension should be in writing from the student’s parent/guardian. It is at the discretion of the KLA Coordinator to approve the extension. Difficulties with a computer, printing or lack of organisation are not acceptable reasons to grant an extension. Students cannot request an extension on the day a task is due. Students who do not submit the task on the new date will receive a “Non-submission” form.