3.7 Assessment and reports

Markbooks and tasks, results, school reports and their publication, subject selection, transcripts, VET enrolments and the results a board or a previous system published.

Written forTeacherHead of house or yearPrincipal and executiveRegistrarBusiness managerITFamiliesStudents

What it is for

Assessment is where a teacher sets the tasks for a class, records each student's result and writes feedback. The results roll up into averages, and at the end of a reporting period each student's report is written, signed off and sent home. The same module runs subject selection for senior years, keeps each student's academic transcript and records the VET qualifications students are enrolled in.

A teacher marks from the Assessment area of the console, and reads a student's results and reports on the student's own page, in the "Assessment", "Estimated marks", "Transcript", "VET enrolments" and "Reports" sections. A family reads released results and published reports in the portal.

Who uses it

• 6.1 What you can see
• 6.2 Restricted details

Key ideas

Markbook

A class's tasks and the result of each student on each one, with the averages they imply. A teacher can override a calculated average with a reason.

Task

A piece of assessment set for a class, with a due date, a weight, how it is marked and the curriculum outcomes it assesses. A task can count toward the school report or a board submission.

Release

A result stays with staff until the teacher releases it. Once released, the student and the family read it in the portal.

Reporting period

A span the school reports on, with the day its reports go home. Each period has a report for each student, made of sections written by teachers.

Sign-off

The step where the written reports are checked and released. The principal publishes a period's reports, and can republish one that has been corrected.

Estimated marks

A continuing student's estimated mark for next year in a subject. A head of department can amend one, giving a reason.

Subject selection

A round in which students choose subjects for next year from the ones offered, within the least and most a round allows.

• 7.1 Glossary

Screens

• Markbooks

  /app/assessment

  The classes on the timetable this year, each with its markbook.

  Needs assessment.markbook.read

• A class's markbook

  /app/assessment/classes/[id]

  A class's tasks and each student's result on each one, with the averages. A teacher records results and feedback here.

  Needs assessment.markbook.read

• A task

  /app/assessment/tasks/[id]

  One task: its details, the results against it, and who has not been marked.

  Needs assessment.markbook.read

• Department tasks

  /app/assessment/departments

  The tasks set in the departments you head, and who set each one. Results are not shown.

  Needs assessment.markbook.review

• Estimated marks

  /app/assessment/estimates

  Each continuing student's estimated mark for next year in your departments' subjects, which you can amend with a reason.

  Needs assessment.markbook.review

• Cohort insight

  /app/assessment/insight

  How much each group of students grew between reporting periods, with its student count and interval, and the spread of their marks. A group of fewer than five students shows no figure. A NAPLAN section shows how much each cohort grew between NAPLAN years in a domain, with the students matched and not matched. The morning list tells you when a year level or subject grew more than the school, or when two groups of one cohort grew by different amounts, and opens this screen on that grouping. The home page can show the growth of each year level as a tile.

  Needs assessment.insight.read

• Reporting

  /app/assessment/reporting

  The school's reporting periods and where each stands.

  Needs assessment.report.write

• A reporting period

  /app/assessment/reporting/[id]

  One period: the sections you still have to write, what is outstanding across the school, the reports and, for the principal, opening and publishing.

  Needs assessment.report.write

• A report

  /app/assessment/reports/[id]

  One student's report: its sections, what has happened on it and the publications sent home.

  Needs assessment.report.write

• Subject selection

  /app/assessment/selection

  The rounds of subject selection, open and closed.

  Needs assessment.selection.write

• A selection round

  /app/assessment/selection/[id]

  One round: the subjects offered, the choices students have made and what each subject was asked for.

  Needs assessment.selection.write

• Transcript

  /app/assessment/transcripts/[id]

  A student's or a former student's academic history across all the years the school has.

  Needs assessment.transcript.read

• VET enrolments

  /app/assessment/vet

  The VET qualifications students are enrolled in with a registered training organisation.

  Needs assessment.vet.write

• Exam entries

  /app/assessment/entries

  An English school's candidates for an awarding body's entry codes, and the entries file it sends the body.

  Needs assessment.entries.write

• Exams

  /app/assessment/exams

  The school's internal exam blocks, such as the Year 12 trial exams, with their dates.

  Needs assessment.exam.read

• An exam block

  /app/assessment/exams/[id]

  One block's papers: when each starts, its reading and writing time, when it ends, the exam tasks it is sat for and its rooms.

  Needs assessment.exam.read

A teacher also sees a "Marking and comments owed" panel on the home page, which lists the tasks with students still unmarked and the report comments still to write.

Setting a task and marking it

1. Open Assessment and choose the class. The "Markbooks" screen lists the classes on the timetable.
2. Set a task: name it, say when it is due, how it is marked, its weight and the outcomes it assesses.
3. Record each student's result. Add feedback where it helps the student.
4. Release the results when you are ready for students and families to read them.

A result entered wrongly is corrected, and the correction is on the record. To override a calculated average, you give a reason. A teacher can attach a work sample to a result, which a student reads once the result is released.

Writing and publishing reports

A reporting period is set up in Settings with its dates and the day reports go home. The principal opens the period's reports with "Open the reports". Each report is then made of sections, one for each subject and one for the whole report, and the teacher who owns a section writes its comment and grade with "Write this section" and "Save the section".

The period's page lists your sections still to write and, for those who may see it, what is outstanding across the school, with what is overdue. A section can be returned to the teacher with a note. The principal starts the sign-off for a report with "Start the sign-off" and publishes the period's reports when the day comes. A published report that was wrong is taken back with "Take the report back" and republished once corrected. Each publication is listed on the report.

• 2.7 Assessment to reports

Reading cohort growth

Cohort insight answers one question first: how much did each group of students grow since the reporting period before? Growth comes before attainment. A group with high marks and no growth, and a group with lower marks and strong growth, are different stories, and the first thing you see is the growth. Each group is a dot on a shared scale with a line either side of it, and the school's own growth is the reference line the dots are read against. The spread of marks, which is attainment, is the second chart.

A group's growth is the middle value of the change in each student's own marks, counting only students with a mark in both periods. The line either side of the dot is the interval. Read it as the range the group's growth could reasonably be in, given how many students it has and how much they differ. A wide interval means the figure is uncertain. When two groups' intervals overlap, the screen does not call one group better than the other, and it states a difference between two groups only when their intervals do not overlap.

Every figure comes with the number of students behind it. A group of fewer than five students has no figure at all and reads "Fewer than five students", so a small group is never identifiable from a mark or a growth. A figure marked provisional has an interval wider than the concern figure the school has set, so it may move, and it is dashed on the chart. "Growing well" lists the groups whose whole interval is above the school's growth, and a provisional figure is never on that list.

You see growth in two other places. The home page offers a tile, "Growth this term by year level", which the principal and anyone else who may read Cohort insight can add on the home settings page, and which opens Cohort insight. The report library in Reporting has a standard report, "Cohort growth", that takes the dates the tasks fall between, the day to read results as at and the grouping, and returns the same figures with their counts and intervals. A group under five students appears in the report by name, marked as withheld, with no figure. Reading as at a day uses the results recorded by the end of that day, so a report run for a past day gives the figures as they stood then.

Subject selection, transcripts and VET

A subject selection round has a window, the subjects it offers and a least and most each student may choose. Students choose from the portal, and a student can send their choices until the round closes. The Subject selection screen shows the choices made and what each subject was asked for. A family reads the round and the choices sent for their child.

The registrar imports academic history from a previous system and reads a transcript across all the years the school has. On a student's page, the "Transcript" section shows it.

The VET enrolments screen lists the qualifications students are enrolled in with an RTO, with the units and how the RTO reports each one. A registrar adds, amends or removes an enrolment.

At a school in England, the Exam entries screen enters a class's members for an awarding body's entry code and exports the entries file the body takes. The officer uploads the file to the body and then marks it sent, which gives the next file the next number in the academic year.

The Exams screen lists the school's internal exam blocks. The registrar or the principal adds a block with "Add a block", then opens it and adds each paper with "Add a session": its start, its reading and writing time and the exam tasks it is sat for. Kestrel works out when the paper ends. A room is picked from the bookings made on the timetable's rooms page in the block's dates, and a room whose booking was cancelled, is too small or has a lesson in it then shows that beside it. A teacher sees the sessions their own classes sit.

What families and students read

In the portal, a family reads a Results section for each child, which shows released results with feedback, the outcomes assessed and progress against them, and a Reports section, which shows each published report. Reports still being written do not appear. A student reads the same once the school switches the section on for students. Subject selection shows the current round and the choices sent.

• 4.5 Learning and wellbeing
• 4.2 A child's page
• 4.6 The student portal

Tasks

• Set a task for a class. Set an assessment task
• Enter marks and feedback. Enter marks

Journeys

• 2.7 Assessment to reports
• 2.10 Leaving the school

Settings

The school's reporting is configured by a role with assessment.config.write, usually the business manager or IT. Results a board or a previous system published are loaded through Data imports.

• Assessment

  /app/settings/assessment

  Reporting periods, report templates, marking scales and curriculum outcomes.

  Needs assessment.config.write

• Board courses

  /app/settings/board-courses

  The senior classes this year and the board course each follows.

  Needs assessment.config.write

• External results

  /app/imports/external-results

  Load the HSC, IB or ATAR results a board published before the school moved to Kestrel.

  Needs assessment.transcript.write

• NAPLAN results

  /app/imports/naplan-results

  Load NAPLAN results onto the records of the students in them.

  Needs assessment.transcript.write

• 5.5 Module settings
• 5.8 Imports and returns

Seat candidates and run an exam

• Exam session

  /app/assessment/exams/sessions/[id]

  Seat candidates, add a student, read clashes and roster supervisors.

• Supervisor’s sheet

  /app/assessment/exams/sessions/[id]/sheet

  Mark arrivals and read the room's instructions, or print the shorter paper sheet.

Open a session from the exam block. Choose a candidate to seat, move or take them off, and use Add a student for a candidate not supplied by a class. Read each finish time and clash, including extra time. Roster a supervisor and resolve gaps in the chief, room ratio or reader-writer cover.

A rostered supervisor opens the sheet from thirty minutes before the paper until thirty minutes after the last student finishes; the exams office can open it at any time. Seat an unseated candidate before marking their arrival. The screen includes the approved learning-support and nurse instructions. The printed sheet includes seats, names, finish times, provision kinds and tick boxes, and leaves those instruction lines out.

Reflect on your own teaching

• My teaching

  /app/assessment/my-teaching

  A teacher reads growth across their own classes and keeps a reflection.

• Shared teaching snapshot

  /app/assessment/teaching-shares/[id]

  A named colleague reads a frozen snapshot the teacher shared.

My teaching shows your own classes over the chosen reporting periods, with course comparisons and intervals. Read the context and uncertainty alongside the figures. You can share a frozen snapshot, optionally with one reflection, with a named colleague. The colleague reads that snapshot rather than your live markbook. A share expires and can be withdrawn.

Keep the learner profile

On the student's record, Learner profile combines academic strengths and knowledge and skills calculated from this year's results, attached work samples and teachers' observations. Choose Record an observation for leadership, character, unique potential, a preferred way of learning or motivation. The note keeps its author and date. Correct replaces a standing observation while preserving its history; reading the profile alone does not permit a correction.

The family profile is read-only and starts switched off. Turn it on deliberately in Portal settings before relying on families being able to read it.

• 4.5 Learning and wellbeing

Training notes

• Teachers need setting a task, marking and writing a report section, about 30 minutes, practised on the baseline school.
• The principal needs opening, signing off and publishing a period's reports, and the department review screens, about 20 minutes.
• Registrars need subject selection, transcripts and VET enrolments, about 20 minutes.
• Administrators need the Assessment settings before the first reporting period opens.