Moderation

The integrity of the ACT Senior Secondary Certificate depends on robust, collaborative and rigorous structured consensus-based peer review moderation.

Moderation is undertaken for two purposes: accountability and improvement.

Peer reviewed moderation is the process of calibrating assessments so that there is comparability of assessment quality and grades either internally, within a school, or externally, across all sectors and colleges.

Currently, the process involves years eleven and twelve teachers from all institutions that offer the ACT senior secondary curriculum. On each Moderation Day, presentations sampling the assessment of units are subjected to peer review. These presentations include documentation of course unit delivery and a specified number of portfolios of student work. Delegated teachers compile presentations of student work and submit it to the OBSSS via ACS. Your supervisor will tell you who in your faulty is responsible for preparing moderation presentations for particular courses and how to proceed.

This moderation process takes place twice a year, in term one and term three. On each day, suites of tasks and portfolios of students' work in all subject areas are reviewed.

Consensus peer-based moderation upholds comparability and consistency in the allocation of grades, based on the analysis of student work in relation to Achievement Standards. Collaborative moderation allows teachers to calibrate their knowledge and understandings of curriculum and assessment practices. These professional conversations further develop teachers’ knowledge and understanding of curriculum and assessment.

Feedback provided to schools will not be retrospective in its impact. Students will not see it and it will not affect the students retrospectively. It is used to inform schools going forward.

The Office on the BSSS will provide feedback to schools on their adherence to rules about the accuracy and provision of information to students and the provision of materials necessary to allow for a robust and fair quality assurance process.

When you are at Moderation Day, you will be asked to look at another school's suite of assessment and provide meaningful feedback on the following areas:

Is there evidence to support the grade, i.e. Do you agree with the unit grade awarded? Refer to relevant Achievement Standards to justify your position.
Was the feedback provided to students adequate to support improvement and to understand reasons for the grade awarded
Did the assessment task allow students to demonstrate their understanding at a variety of levels of thinking? Did that level of thinking align with the achievement standards?
Is the assessment instrument reliable? This may include considering: Was the rubric or marking scheme written specifically enough for assessment task, but also based on the Achievement Standards? Would any teacher be able to arrive as the same mark and grade the student earned? Are the instructions and guidelines clear enough that students will attempt the task in comparable ways, or in the manner probably intended by the teacher?
Did the suite of assessment cover the curriculum content assigned to the unit?

Your school will have a Moderation Coordinator who will be able to work with you if you are responsible for completing a moderation presentation. You need to speak with your Moderation Coordinator and/or Faculty Leader to see which assessment items will need to be retained for each semester in order to ensure you have all materials ready.

Be sure to ask where the course you are submitting for moderation sits on the risk matrix, and about any feedback on the course received on previous Moderation Days.

Each semester schools are required to submit presentations to the BSSS for Moderation. There are further details here at the ‘Memos & How To’s’ tab. The number of presentations required varies depending on course area and enrolments. Please see the table below for further details.

In order to simplify this process, most material you need will already be in ACS. However, it is also recommended to save the following documents as they are created in a ‘Moderation Presentation Folder’ on your school drive:

Sample Answers for each Assessment task
Student work samples, if they are not already saved in the school LMS. You will need to hold on to assessment work, or copies, for the whole student candidature. You will need to submit student work samples marked with feedback for a variety of students.

Make sure you record speaking/performance tasks and have them accessible for the creation of moderation portfolios. You should minimise file size, as high definition recordings are not required. If the file is very large, your moderation coordinator will guide you in how to submit larger files for moderation day.

If you do this as the semester progresses, you will have no problems meeting moderation requirements.

Please note there are subject specific requirements for PE and Outdoor Education. If you will be teaching in one of these course areas, please look here for further details.

Moderation Day occurs via course areas and will likely be at a school different to the one you usually attend. See this link for further information about Moderation Venues or speak to your Moderation Coordinator.

Please complete this form to receive credit for completing the Moderation Activity which is the final portion of this workshop.

Once you have submitted all six Forms, we ask that you email bssscurriculum@act.gov.au to let our team know your responses are ready for review.

Completion of TQI surveys is crucial to the continuation of our workshops.

Please complete your reflection in a timely manner after the completion of this workshop.

Remember:

Reach out to bsss.enquiries@act.gov.au if you have any questions. We will endeavour to get back to you within 1 working day.

Thank you and congratulations on your new career teaching college students in the ACT.

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