Assessment and reporting guidance
This resource supports schools to review their assessment and reporting systems and processes.
About this resource
Reviewing your school’s assessment and reporting is an important process. This resource supports schools to think critically about what is working well and what needs to change with regards to assessment and reporting. It contains a series of reflective questions focused around the NELP objectives. The school stories in this resource showcase different approaches to assessment.
Assessment and reporting guidance
- Reviewing your school's assessment systems
- School stories
Reviewing your school's assessment systems
The 2007 New Zealand Curriculum is a framework rather than a detailed plan. This means that while your school curriculum must be clearly aligned with the intent of the national curriculum, you have flexibility when designing learning opportunities and ways to assess progress and achievement.
Never believe that your assessment processes are the final product. Teaching and learning keep evolving, and how we assess and report on progress keeps moving too.
Tips for reviewing
- Keep the principles of assessment for learning in mind and check the coherence of your emerging system against them continuously.
- Consider all stakeholders for assessment information: ākonga, parents, teachers, whānau, school management, boards of trustees, and the Ministry of Education. As you design your assessment processes, make sure that you can meet the legitimate needs of everyone.
- Think about your purposes for assessment. Assess only when the information will be used to improve teaching and learning. Do not overassess.
- Think about your systems for recording, storing, and sharing assessment information. These should be easily updated and accessed.
- Keep overall judgements of progress and achievement a central part of the process at all levels. It is the big ideas and concepts that we want learners to take hold of, as well as the techniques, skills, and strategies.
- Remember that moderation, using agreed-upon sources of evidence, assures everyone of the dependability of judgments about where the learner is at.
Consider the National Education Priorities (NELP)
As you design and review your assessment systems, your school must consider the National Education and Learning Priorities (NELP). The table below lists three NELP objectives that are pertinent to assessment, with reflective questions to kickstart a self-review process:
NELP Objectives |
He pātai hei whakaaro iho | Reflective questions |
|---|---|
Learners at the centre
|
How do we involve learners and their whānau in designing and reviewing our assessment processes to inform teaching and learning? How do we involve students richly in the assessment of their learning? How is achievement information shared with learners and their whānau? Does this approach best meet their needs? Are our learners able to talk about/share their assessments (both formal and informal) with their whānau? How well do our assessment practices help us identify and respond to the individual strengths, needs, and aspirations of every learner? Do you have dependable data and information about the status of a student’s (or group of students’) learning? How are learner agency and assessment capabilities being developed across our school? Can ākonga answer the following questions:
How do you reliably gather and aggregate information about the needs of groups of students? |
Barrier free access Great education opportunities and outcomes are within reach for every learner
|
How do your families and whānau access assessment information about their learner? Are there opportunities to discuss assessment data and information? How do we use assessment information to improve learning opportunities and teaching approaches? How do our assessment practices help us ensure that education opportunities and successful outcomes are within reach for every learner? Do we have a common understanding about progress and achievement across the curriculum? Can you contribute evidence to partnerships for learning (parents, colleagues, boards, etc.)? Is there a shared language of learning across the school? Are teachers able to access the assessments they want to use with their learners? Do all teachers know how to administer these assessments? |
Quality teaching and leadership |
Is there a culture within our school that supports assessment being done with the students rather than to them? Do our assessments help inform learning? How do we use the results from assessments? Is there a strong alignment between what is taught and what is being assessed? Do our assessment practices meaningfully incorporate te reo Māori and tikanga Māori? How can we seek advice from Māori on how best to include te reo Māori and tikanga Māori in assessment? Do we assess too much or too little? What tools/practices do we use to ensure that progressions of learning are well documented, with exemplars from student work, teacher observations, and assessment tool information? Are our tools and practices fit for purpose for understanding the progress and strengths of diverse ākonga, including those that are bi- or multilingual or who have complex and interrelated needs? What PLD do we need to support our assessment practices? |
Supporting resources
- Leading Local Curriculum Guide – Assessment for learning offers support on reviewing your assessment policies and procedures and can be used for ongoing review.
- Leading Local Curriculum Guide – Information sharing and building learning partnerships contains guidance on having conversations with young people and their whānau about learning and progress.
