School Standards and Accountability

SchoolMate.NET schools use standards to provide a common set of benchmarks that clarify expectations and enable the setting of significant targets. SchoolMate.NET teachers share the accountability for student and school outcomes, and actively analyse student and school results to bring about improved outcomes at student, class, program and at whole school level.

Accountability for student learning is made possible with externally or internally developed standard frameworks that clearly define the curriculum-learning path from beginning to completion of schooling. SchoolMate.NET teachers use these standards when designing unit and lessons plans, and may have rubrics available to benchmark what a student recalls, understands and demonstrates at a particular point in time. Content and student achievement standards within the standard framework are:

• equitably developed

• challenging yet attainable, and

• measurable.

SchoolMate.NET schools and their staffs continuously reflect on the agreed student and school standards, and strive to assure validity and appropriateness in reporting student and school results to students, parents, and the wider community. SchoolMate.NET schools also look beyond explicit and expected standards and include implicit standards in areas such as thinking, reasoning and work skills. Competencies that deal with the world of work, such as managing time effectively, working well with others, and managing resources are valued.

SchoolMate.NET schools use a variety of frequent assessment techniques in the classroom for assessing their students on standards and benchmarks. The use of a variety of techniques including portfolios, performance tasks, traditional tests and informal observations enable the assessment of standards and benchmarks during regular classroom instruction.

SchoolMate.NET schools seek to clarify the appropriate roles of state testing and classroom assessment, and ensure where necessary that they complement each other. SchoolMate.NET also enables school administrators and teachers to:

• reach broad consensus on what is to be reported, and how and when to gather the necessary data

• develop a core of comparable data and school specific information that enables parents and community members to share accurate knowledge about the school, and to establish ways to react to, and use reports

• collect and verify individual and multiple year data, and to analyse value-addedness

• determine annual and longitudinal data in target areas

• analyse and share knowledge about specific cohorts and groups within the school

• manifest school reporting as a key tool in continuous improvement based on student performance.

Quality professional development is a continuous, ongoing and an integrated part of the school day in SchoolMate.NET schools. Where possible SchoolMate.NET schools provide quality in school time to enable administrators, teachers and community members to address challenging content standards, higher expectations for all students and new methods of assessment, instruction and accountability.

Standard and Accountability Timelines
A number of checks and balances in SchoolMate.NET enable teachers to maintain a consistent and efficient approach to data and information collection. Although the assessment of student outcomes is continuous and the recording of information is noted daily on SchoolMate.NET, teachers are expected to have:

• school and state results recorded and available at an agreed time in preparation for public annual reporting

• anecdotal records updated within an agreed time, and

• an agreed number of formal written reports available for the parent and student.

This enables the annual review of student learning outcomes to be completed to determine:

• individual and student cohort performance

• program effectiveness

• value-added performance, and

• trend data in learning and behaviour.

This review enables the refinement and in some cases the overhaul of current programs, and the collaborative agreement of future directions. The information gathered provides the baseline for knowledge creation and the impetus for innovative programs in the following year.

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