In 2019, a new English Senior Secondary syllabus (QCAA, 2019) was implemented in all schools across Queensland, Australia. This syllabus, incorporating high-stakes external examinations and supporting documents, instigated a shift in the teaching and assessing of senior secondary English that has been both challenging and revitalising for…

Student agency in assessment is evident when students make assessment choices, and their voices inform decisions. This paper presents an in-depth case study of a high performing school that sought student voice to reform its assessment culture to enhance student agency. Secondary students in an Australian school were invited to draw a visual…

Assessment policy internationally places significant importance on the use of assessment criteria across all subject areas. However, in order to ensure effective use of criteria, it is critical for teachers to develop an in-depth understanding of them. This paper reports on a study of a range of Australian Science teachers' views and uses of…

Cross institutional benchmarking provides the opportunity to ensure comparability of standards by comparing learning outcomes and assessment practices, and acts as a catalyst for change and improved practice. The comparability of standards is crucial for the transparency and portability of qualifications as well as the assurance of quality student…

While Learning Analytics (LA) have gained momentum in higher education, there are still few examples of application in the school sector. Even fewer cases are reported of systematic, organizational adoption to drive the support of student learning trajectories that includes teachers, pastoral leaders, and academic managers. This paper presents one…

This paper discusses educational insights drawn from a mixed-methods study in Religious Education (RE). The study involved 238 teachers and school leaders, working in 65 Catholic schools in Western Australia (WA). The focus of the study was the educators' perceptions of a large-scale, standardised assessment (LSA) called "The Bishops'…

This book provides an introduction to what it means to be numerate, and how numeracy can best be developed and nurtured in children and in adults. It also presents a cohesive coverage of numeracy development from early childhood to adulthood. This book draws on international research and practice to provide a comprehensive overview on the topic.…

Ongoing and regular assessment is a critical component of the Drama classroom. Australia has a state-based system of education, in which states and territories are responsible for their own assessment policies. Each Australian state and territory has a different system of assessing Drama in the senior years, accompanied by varying methods of grade…

This project investigated how Australian Capital Territory (ACT) teachers of physical education (PE) assess games and sports as a Focus Area in the "Australian curriculum health and physical education" (AC: HPE). Figurational sociology, including the concept of habitus was used to inform the study and make sense of the findings. The…

While literacy research in the area of multimodality includes a range of communication modes, the combination of the visual and verbal modes is arguably the most common multimodal text form used in classroom contexts from posters, charts and information texts to picture books and graphic novels. Assessment of students' understanding of visual and…

The 'responding' strand of the Australian visual arts curriculum promotes twenty-first century learning skills through students' analytical engagement with artworks and artists. Assessing students' experiences and engagement is one strategy to improve teaching and learning in responding. However, there are no validated, subject-specific student…

This paper explores the continued cultural consecration of narrow forms of knowledge and literate practice in senior Australian English curricula. Despite the prevalence of Personal Growth approaches to English throughout Australia in the latter decades of the Twentieth century, the analysis of curricula reveals a contradiction between stated…

Hattie and Timperley's (2007) model of effective feedback, widely used in teacher professional development, provides an easily-applied framework for thinking about the information contained in feedback. However, the model simplifies a complex phenomenon shaped in practice by interpersonal, disciplinary and institutional aspects. Examining the…

In this paper, we present a novel approach to defining, teaching, and assessing creativity by examining its origins and delineating the processes involved. The rationale for introducing this framework developed from studying existing thinking and questioning the current metrics for measuring creativity, which we posit are unfit for purpose. We…

Education in Australia is driven by measurement of progress. Music education, however, requires students to engage in creative and experiential tasks. This article will address the inevitable conflicts between these two by suggesting that measurements of student work in fine detail can be made within a practical and engaging classroom without…