The ‘ways of assessing’ complement ‘ways of teaching’ and aim to support teachers in developing effective assessment practices in the English learning area.

The ‘ways of assessing’ also complement the principles of assessment contained in the Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline. The assessment principles, reflective questions and assessment snapshots, available on the Authority’s website, support teachers in reflecting on their own assessment practice in relation to each of the assessment principles. Here teachers will find:

• background information for each principle
• reflective questions
• guidance for addressing the principle within their own assessment practice.

Refer to the Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline (https://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/) for further guidance on assessment principles, practices and phases of schooling.

Assessment, both formative and summative, is an integral part of teaching and learning. Assessment should arise naturally out of the learning experiences provided to students. In addition, assessment should provide regular opportunities for teachers to reflect on student achievement and progress. The key to selecting the most appropriate assessment is in the answers to several reflective questions. For example:

• Is assessment an integral part of your Teaching and learning cycle?
• How do you use your observations of students (during the course of classroom activities, in assignments and in tests) to determine how learning can be improved?
• Is the assessment educative?
• How do you identify students’ misconceptions or gaps in their learning?
• How do you identify the next skill or understanding a student, or group of students, needs to learn?
• How do you use assessment to inform your programming and lesson planning?
• Is the assessment fair?
• Do your assessment practices cater for the diverse needs of your students? Are they inclusive, accessible to all students and free of bias?
• Do some students require a differentiated assessment task in order to fully demonstrate their understandings and/or skills?
• Is the assessment designed to meet a specific purpose?
• Do your assessments have a clear purpose?
• How do you ensure your students are clear on what aspects of learning are being assessed?
• How can you be sure your assessment tasks are reliable, measure what they intend to and provide accurate information about each student?
• Do your assessments lead to informative reporting?
• What range of evidence do you draw on when you report student performance and evaluate your teaching?
• How do your assessments lead to school-wide evaluation processes?
• How do you work with colleagues to evaluate student achievement data and how does this work inform your teaching?

Refer to the Judging Standards tool in the Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline (https:/k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/assessment/judgingstandards) when reporting against the Achievement Standard; giving assessment feedback; or explaining the differences between one student’s achievement and another’s.

In the Western Australian Curriculum: English, the three strands of Language, Literature and Literacy are interrelated and inform and support each other. In English, assessment tasks typically address the syllabus content in interconnected ways within relevant contexts that are meaningful to students.

The following table provides examples of assessment strategies which can enable teachers to gather a broad range of evidence for assessment in English.