Myth 2: Assessment practice and gathering evidence

Myths

All students in a class must be assessed at the same time.
Offering different standards, tasks or context to students in the same class isn’t allowed, provides an advantage, and is not fair.
Student assessment evidence can only be used for one standard and not multiple standards..
Assessment evidence must all be presented in the same way using the same context and must be in writing
Portfolio evidence means that students have multiple assessment opportunities.
Students can resubmit evidence for the same standard multiple times.
The more evidence produced the better.

Students should be assessed when they are ready, when this is manageable for the school.
Assessment should give students a fair opportunity to succeed.
Should not disadvantage particular learners, such as those entitled to special assessment conditions.
Students in a class can complete different standards. They don’t need to be assessed for all the standards offered in the assessment programme.
Different tasks or contexts can be used to assess individual students, as the teacher’s judgement is against the standard.
Evidence of achievement can be gathered in different ways, so long as it meets the standard’s requirements, is authentic, and can be verified.
Evidence can be:

As each standard assesses a different learning outcome, authentic evidence generated during teaching and learning can be used for more than one standard. This can be within a subject or across subjects.

Not all learning needs to be assessed. Assessment should not drive a learning programme.
By assessing fewer standards students can “do less, better”.
The amount and type of evidence needs to be appropriate to the standard.