Updated: Mar 2000 | Reporting - Methods | Summative Reports

Summative Reports

Summative reports can be oral, but traditionally tend to be written. In an outcomes-focused approach, they should indicate the Learning Area Outcomes that the student is achieving and the level. The outcomes are stated in the Curriculum Framework and the Outcomes and Standards Framework.

	Levels
	Strand Performance
	Achievement in Context
	Benchmarks & Standards

For reporting performance to parents and informing school planning and reporting, teachers should report student achievement of outcomes at the strand level. In some instances schools may decide to report at the substrand level, or to provide an even finer level of detail. However, when schools do report at the substrand level, the interrelatedness of the substrands must be recognised. Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting: Policy and Guidelines, (1998), p.12

Levels

The Outcomes and Standards Framework levels allow teachers to create profiles or maps of performance of individual students for the majority of the Learning Area Outcomes. Most strands are divided into levels of lower to higher achievement. Samples of work gathered through different forms of assessment should point to a student's achievement of a learning outcome. Different students may be mapped at different levels of achievement at any one year level.

The task of the teacher is to use the Student Outcome Statements to make judgements about a student's profile based on a range of appropriate assessments methods. Masters (1992) describes this as a process by which a teacher infers a student's level of achievement in a holistic and 'on-balance' way in relation to the student's learning context. This is different from reporting outcomes that have been specified as narrow behavioural objectives that the student must master and display most of the time.

With summative reports, teachers must decide how to report a student's achievement of outcomes in a way that can be interpreted and easily understood by parents.

Such reports are regularly supported with comments at the strand or learning area level to provide a more informative description of the student's performance.

The subject profile is not itself an instrument of assessment ... . It is, if you like, a vertical map of performance territory from a lower to higher performance upon which a student's cumulative performance as assessed can be placed. Each of the levels, or strands within the levels, describes a standard against which the student's work can be compared and matched. Boomer, G. The Advent of Standards in Australian Education, Curriculum Perspectives (1992), 12, 1, p. 63

Strand Performance

Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting: Policy and Guidelines requires schools to report on all learning area strands at least once every two years. In determining the cycle of reporting progress on strands, schools need to consider a number of questions, including: What are the expectations of parents and students? Is there a need to report on a whole group or individuals more frequently, particularly students experiencing difficulties?

	Does the frequency of reporting vary in relation to the phases of schooling?
	Are some strands within a learning area interdependent? For example: the Technology and Enterprise Student Outcome Statements require the Technology Process strand to be developed in relation to the Materials, Information and Systems strands. What does it mean for reporting when such relationships exist between strands?
	Does it mean that because a strand is not reported, it is therefore not assessed and is not part of the teaching and learning program?
	Are considerations different for strands that focus on process as opposed to those that concentrate on concept development?

Achievement in Context

Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Policy and Guidelines indicates that reporting of learning outcomes in context should occur where this is appropriate. This requires consideration of a number of questions:

	What is the rationale behind reporting in context?
	Which learning areas have contexts that need to be reported separately?
	Do all outcomes within a learning area need to be reported separately in context?
	Does reporting in context apply equally over all phases of schooling?
	How fine a level of differentiation is desirable (e.g. music - stringed instruments - viola)?

Schools working to determine which contexts should be reported at the school level may find the following principles useful to guide their decision making.

Principle 1: If the underlying knowledge, skill or understandings required to demonstrate an outcome are different, then reporting those outcomes in context should occur.

Examples of where outcomes may be achieved in different contexts are:

	LOTE Different languages.
	Health and Physical Education Concepts for a Healthy Lifestyle: Food and Nutrition, Health and Physical Activity. Skills for Physical Activity: two contexts, physical and outdoor pursuits.
	The Arts The Arts contexts: dance, drama, media, music, visual arts and combinations.
	Technology and Enterprise Over time, as fields of technology develop, contexts are likely to change. The focus for the context can be the materials used, system developed or applied, or the information product or process being developed. Materials e.g. food, wood. Systems e.g. mechanical systems, business/computing systems. Information e.g. graphics, photography.

Principle 2: Where the same fundamental or underlying knowledge structures and/or skills are required to demonstrate performance of an outcome, then reporting in context should not occur. Examples of this may include:

	English The Viewing strand may be taught by both the English teacher and the Media Studies teacher. Students are required to critically respond to visual texts. As students are not probing or developing a different dimension of their mind when working with this in English or Media, one level for Viewing is required. This will require the teachers of Media and English to collaborate.
	Health and Physical Education Similar arguments to those used in the Viewing example in English could be used for the Self-management Skills and Interpersonal Skills outcomes being developed in Career Education, Home Economics and Health Education.

Benchmarks and Standards

It is the responsibility of the school, in consultation with its community, to decide how norm-referenced information, such as benchmarks and standards, are to be communicated in relation to individual student performance.

The standards of the Outcomes and Standards Framework will provide comparative information that schools may wish to record on their reports.

Effective education takes place when all key stakeholders are included: the student, the parent and the school. When each of the stakeholders is empowered, a partnership can be formed between home and school, enabling an effective transfer of information to take place. Making the Difference: Policy and Guidelines for Students at Educational Risk. (1998) p.10