Assessment
Essential information for teachers looking for assessment advice and resources.
"High quality student assessment supports teachers to monitor student progress and inform next steps, determine the effectiveness of chosen teaching strategies – both for learning and engagement – and to measure student understanding of a unit of work (Stronge 2002)." – What works best: 2020 update
Assessment essentials
For detailed information on current research on best practice to support teaching and learning including assessment, refer to CESE's What works best: 2020 update and What works best in practice (PDF 3MB). Chapter 5 targets assessment and Chapter 3 targets effective feedback.
The department’s Curriculum planning and programming, assessing and reporting to parents K-12 policy informs school-based decisions about assessment and reporting processes.
Schools can work reflectively to evaluate and improve assessment practice using the School Excellence Framework (PDF 292KB):
The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers identify key aspects of professional practice relating to assessment. Teachers:
- assess student learning
- provide feedback to students on their learning
- make consistent and comparable judgement
- interpret student data
- report on student achievement.
The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) assessment page provides a good overview of assessment strategies, principles of effective assessment, adjustments for students with disability and using syllabus outcomes in standards referenced assessment.
The NSW Quality Teaching model provides a research informed approach to assessment practice. Information is available through Quality Teaching Online on the staff portal. Read through the Assessment Elements of the Quality Teaching model online.
Specific advice and strategies
Primary assessment – specific advice, strategies and professional learning for teachers of years K-6.
Secondary assessment – specific advice, strategies and professional learning for teachers of years 7-12 to suit their learning area.
The assessment tool selector will assist in choosing assessment tools to meet a specific need, including testing of numeracy and literacy across K-12.
Assessing literacy and numeracy contains specific advice on assessment of these key capabilities.
Disability, learning and support
If adjustments are made for teaching and learning then similar adjustments should be made for assessment tasks. This allows students to demonstrate what they know and what they can do in relation to curriculum outcomes. Learn more about how to make adjustments to teaching and learning.
Assistive technology can help students access the curriculum and assessment tasks, allowing them to demonstrate learning in alternate formats.
The disability, learning and support statewide staffroom contains relevant information for all staff in the provision of accessible learning, teaching and assessment resources including strategies for assessment for students with disability or additional learning and support needs.
Professional learning
Learning on demand pulls together available professional learning to support teachers with assessment. Join one of our statewide online staffrooms for further assessment support and advice.