Handbook for Teachers - Assessment

Written Assessment
Handbook for new
teachers

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Statement on the purpose of assessment..........................................................................................3
Subheadings organised in such a way that information is easy to find and matches the AITSL
standards..........................................................................................................................................3
Content based on Standard 5............................................................................................................4
GLOSSARY....................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
Appendix..........................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Teaching is regarded as one of the most important professions as it shapes the lives of
numerous individuals in developing their career. The Australian government has created plenty
standards to maintain their teacher's proficiency which is helpful in improving their practices
(Mansfield and et. al., 2016). This handbook is developed on Graduate Teaching Standards 5
according to Australian Professional Standards for Graduate level teacher. It will initially
provide description about AITSL different standards belonging to 5th level.
Statement on the purpose of assessment
The primary rationale of this assessment handbook is to provide new scheme to teachers
in primary schools. This handbook is developed on Graduate Teaching Standard 5 of the
Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. The handbook will enhance knowledge of
teachers on standards mentioned in Australian Professional Standards for teachers. It is the
responsibility of the teacher to develop and grow the learning capability of every student present
within the classroom (Elliott, 2015). These standards guide teacher about their professional
practices only that what they are required to achieve as per different stages of career. Knowledge
of professional standards of teaching improvises teaching practices for teachers within the
classroom and outside the class.
Subheadings organised in such a way that information is easy to find and
matches the AITSL standards
Australian professional standards are considered as some of the terms which state the
quality of teaching of a teacher. Also, it shows how a teacher can improvise their practices by
adopting these standards and enhance the value of knowledge among students. These standards
were tested in order to check its feasibility. This checking is done based on different grounds that
is geographical locations, sectors and systems and school types. According to AITSL, there is a
total of seven different levels of standards which are finalised by the government of Australia for
teachers belonging graduate level (Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, 2017).
Among all seven levels, this report especially emphasises on level 5 that is “Assess, provide
feedback and report on student learning” which includes five standards as its subpart. These
standards are named as below:
 5.1 Assess student learning

 5.2 Provide feedback to students on their learning
 5.3 Make consistent and comparable judgements
 5.4 Interpret student data
 5.5 Report on student achievement
Content based on Standard 5
Focus area 5.1 Assess student learning
It is the first standard in Level 5. According to this, teachers are required to asses learning
parameters of students. For this, teachers are expected to use different ways for understanding
capabilities of students to learn. This clearly states that it is essential for teacher of primary
school to assess learning capability of students in order to identify their core strengths and
weaknesses. At this level, teachers are expected to use different strategies associated with
assessment in order to make it easier for them to enhance their knowledge. It includes both the
formal and informal methods of assessment, diagnostics, summative and formative approaches.
All of these approaches are helpful in analysing learning capability of students. Some of the
common ways which are recommended to teachers for analysing students learning are described
as below:
 Formative assessment: It is considered as the ongoing activity which is used for
evaluation at the time of learning process (What Are Formative Assessments and Why
Should We Use Them, 2019). This method is helpful for the teachers as by using it they
can easily assess regular based learning of students. The main motive of teachers at the
time of conducting this assessment is to find out learning outcome of students so that can
be evaluated on the basis of their future lesson plans.
 Summative assessment: Summative assessment refers to the evaluation of the students
learning after completion of their learning session or at the end of the learning session
(Summative Assessment Definition: A Score That Weighs On Both Teacher and Student,
2019). It is mainly done by comparing it with some specific standards. It is the formal
pattern in which teachers conducts assessment test for students so that overall learning
which have been gained by them in whole session can be evaluated effectively. In this,
teachers are required to check grades of students after completion of their session.
Focus area 5.2 Provide feedback to students on their learning

At the next standard of level 5, it is essential for teachers to provide feedback to every
student on their learning criteria and capability. This feedback is given to students on the basis of
their previous attempted assessments (Bourke, Ryan and Lloyd, 2016). In this, teachers are
expected to tell students about their strength and weaknesses. This will help students in
understanding their strengths deeply which can be used by them in their academics as well as
personal life while moving forward towards their growth. On the other hand, acknowledging
students about their weakness will improve their weak areas of learning. This knowledge will
allow students to adopt suitable ways by which they can improve their skills effectively. While
providing feedback, it is essential for teachers to use descriptive feedback instead of evaluative
one (Adoniou and Gallagher, 2017). Descriptive feedback will allow students to enhance their
knowledge on their personal capabilities of learning areas and improve their weak zones. Also,
teachers also required to cover success criteria and learning goals at the time of giving feedback
to students. This information is required to be conveyed to students in a clear and concise
manner so any confusion and misinterpretation can be avoided. Moreover, teachers are expected
to provide satisfactory time of students so that they can work on the feedback areas stated by the
teacher. Lastly, this standard also states that follow up is considered as the main part of feedback
as it ensures the teachers how effectively students are utilising their feedback for the growth.
Focus area 5.3 Make consistent and comparable judgements
It is the third stage, in which teachers are responsible for making consistent and
comparable judgements through the assessment duration. It has been observed that consistent
judgement of students is not an easy task for teacher especially during the time of summative
assessment (Forde and et. al., 2016). It can be said that consistent judgement aware teacher about
the learning growth of the teacher after attending classroom sessions and feedback from the
teachers. Teachers are further expected to conduct bifurcated analysis among all students of same
batch. This will induce their performance in order to identify their learning capabilities among
them. For enhancing effectiveness of this, it is important for the teachers to allocate grades to
students on the basis of their weekly performance. These grades will help teachers in making
their final judgement over the students’ performance.
Focus area 5.4 Interpret student data
Within this standard of Level 5, teachers are required to interpret the data pertaining to
students. This becomes important because even after moderation, the result of students could be

difficult to be interpreted for teachers. By effectively interpreting the student's data, be it the
moderated scores, tasks or test results, teachers can be informed about the manner of future
teaching together with reflecting the relevance and optimality of learning experience gained in
past (Henderson and Jarvis, 2016). Classroom data, Standardised Test data, VCE data etc. have
to be interpreted by teachers in order to communicate the same to the audience which would be
inclusive of parents, students and other faculty members. It can be said that the examination and
interpretation of student data should help in assessment which is acknowledged to establish at the
time of learning process during the assessment (Ditchburn, 2015). This can be said to be domain
of teacher's professional judgement, whereby they collaboratively work in order to make sense of
the data and other kinds of assessment evidence for recognising the level of students'
development. Teachers either work at an individual level or at a collaborative level in order to
analyse and interpret the data and other evidences. Teachers need to ensure that the interpretation
is done by being aligned with learning and other related curriculum achievement standards.
Teachers may even require professional learning support whereby reading and gaining
comprehensibility of the data involves any sort of complexity.
Focus area 5.5 Report on student achievement
Under this level of standard 5, teachers are required to keep record of student’s
achievement so that this can be further forwarded to their parents or carers. Reporting on
student’s achievement is highly important because it will help students in understanding their
own progress from the learning phase (Savage and Lewis, 2018). Also, this report allows parents
to understand their child's growth and development through results of academic sessions. It is
highly important for teachers to consider evaluate and report students’ performance on the basis
of different parameters such as Attitude, School policy, Achievement, Efforts and Australian
curriculum requirements. In order to enhance efficiency at this standard, teachers can go for
interview in which are required to communicate with parents as well as students (Santoro and
Kennedy, 2016). In this, teachers are requested to discuss topics related to students such as their
preferred learning activities, school's policies, evidence associated with the achievement and
non-achievement of outcomes. At the end of the interview session feedback is mandatory
required to be taken from parents in written format so that their observed issues can be resolved
in same direction (Scholes and et. al., 2017). Apart from this, teachers should also emphasize on
different strategies at the time of reporting student’s achievements. Some of the common

strategies that are beneficial for teachers are usage of portfolios, formal school meetings, school
newsletters, extra curriculum documents, conferences, classroom visits etc. According to the
Standard 5.5 of level 5, teachers are expected to use all of these strategies according to their
suitability and situations of a period of time so that they can easily report to students and parents
as well. This will lead to development of students as they are aware about their learnings.
GLOSSARY
Learning: Knowledge and skills attained by students from the education provided them in
school and experience gained throughout academic study.
Assessments: Action used by teachers to judge students’ performance and learning capability
within their learning sessions.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above described report, it has been concluded that Australian standards
plays essential role in providing assistance to the teachers so that they can execute their work
responsibility in the right directions. It has been analysed that these all five standards of level 5
provides instruction to teachers that how they can improvise their work effectively by adhering
them in sequential manner. It can be said that compliance of these standards is beneficial for the
teachers as well as students, as required of both are fulfilled with it in effective manner.
Appendix
English Writing
Q – Abc Xyz
Ans- Abc Xyz
Key learning
areas
Grades
Higher Distinction Distinction Pass Fail
Punctuations
Level of
knowledge
Evaluation of

grammar
Examine their
capitalization
English Reading
Q – Abc Xyz
Ans- Abc Xyz
Key learning
areas
Grades
Higher Distinction Distinction Pass Fail
Pronunciation
Pitch
Accent
Speed of reading
Mathematics
Q – Abc Xyz
Ans- Abc Xyz
Key learning
areas
Grades
Higher Distinction Distinction Pass Fail
Calculation speed
of students
Command over
basic formulas
Understanding
towards questions

Science
Q – Abc Xyz
Ans- Abc Xyz
Key learning
areas
Grades
Higher Distinction Distinction Pass Fail
Understanding of
basic concept
Knowledge of
scientific name
Knowledge related
to human body
Knowledge of
different space
elements
Human & Social Sciences
Q – Abc Xyz
Ans- Abc Xyz
Key learning
areas
Grades
Higher Distinction Distinction Pass Fail
Understanding of
history
Knowledge about
basic human right
laws
Geographical

knowledge