Marking formal assessment

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When marking formal assessment tasks for multiple classes or across a cohort, schools should implement some common marking practices.

For single marked assessment tasks, consistency may be improved by one teacher marking the task, or part of the task, for the entire cohort.

Where there is more than one teacher responsible for the marking process, a shared understanding of the expectations and standards of the assessment task is required. This will support consistent assessment of student performance throughout the marking process. In some cases, double marking or panel marking may be appropriate.

Standards materials for each course provide examples of different standards of student performance and may assist teachers requiring additional resources for comparison of student achievement at the end of a course.

Marking guidelines

The design of an assessment task and the development of marking guidelines are interrelated processes and should be completed concurrently. Marking guidelines should reflect the standards for the course including outcomes and performance descriptions, and help to provide meaning to the marks awarded for a task.

The purpose of marking guidelines is to:

link the assessment task to the outcomes being assessed
clearly describe the quality required for each mark range
allow for discrimination between the performances of individual students
facilitate consistent assessment of student performance throughout the marking process
support teachers to make judgements, and provide meaningful and constructive feedback about a student’s level of achievement at a point in time.

Marking guidelines should:

link to standards, referencing course outcomes, content and performance descriptions
support valid and reliable assessment by measuring what a task aims to assess
clearly distinguish between different levels of student achievement through mark ranges that reflect the relative importance and difficulty of what students have been asked to do
allow for a range of student achievement in the context of the expected standards for the course
accommodate harder to define characteristics, such as originality and flair or answers that approach the task from an unusual perspective
reflect the quality of individual student performance in the marks awarded
consistently represent an appropriate hierarchy of achievement in the context of standards for the course.

Marks awarded for a task should reflect the standards described in the marking guidelines and be commensurate with the quality of the response. Work that shows more complex development and higher order achievement should receive more marks than work that demonstrates a more basic level of achievement.

Assessment marks

School will make decisions about the type of feedback, including the use of marks and/or grades, to be provided to students for formal assessment tasks.

It is important to ensure that marks earned on individual tasks adequately reflect the differences in student performance. To achieve this, teachers should consider during the marking process, the full range of marks available for the task.

This does not necessarily mean that student marks must be spread across the whole range. Nor does it mean that only marks in the top half of the mark range should be awarded because most Year 12 students' final assessment mark on their Record of Achievement will be between 50 and 100. It is important to remember that both the initial examination marks obtained by students following the marking process, and the initial moderated assessments, are aligned to the performance scale through the standards-setting process. This results in most students receiving reported marks between 50 and 100. The initial marks may have been spread across a wider range.

Students should be awarded marks commensurate with the quality of their response in relation to the marking guidelines. The marking guidelines for assessment tasks should enable teachers to reward work that shows more complex development and higher order achievement with higher marks. At the same time, students whose work demonstrates only a basic level of achievement should receive relatively low marks.

When providing feedback to students about their performance in a task, teachers may use outcomes, marking guidelines and/or performance bands to help students understand the strengths and areas for improvement.

Cumulative ranks and marks

Some schools may decide that it is appropriate to give each student a cumulative rank after each assessment task or at key points throughout the course. However, schools need to be sure that correct weightings have been applied to each task before reporting such a measure of general progress.

Schools are not to provide final cumulative school-based assessment marks to students.

For further advice, read about reporting student achievement.

Maintaining secure records for all marks

Recording evidence for assessment may take a variety of forms, including individual comments, marks, grades, digital recordings and/or audio or visual representations. Recording evidence needs to be manageable and should focus on student progress in relation to outcomes, particular strengths and areas for improvement.

At the completion of a marking process, marks for individual assessment tasks must be recorded by the teacher responsible for marking the task.

Schools need to ensure that procedures exist for the protection of student assessment marks in the event of fire, theft or other misadventure. These procedures may include having a centrally-filed hard and electronic copy of the marks with duplicates stored off-site.