What does this descriptor look like at different levels?
Curriculum, assessment and reporting is the third descriptor of the second standard of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
This descriptor covers your teaching practice, particularly in reference to how you assess the learning of your students. Various descriptors under this focus area talk about learning programs and activities, but the core of this focus area is how you build assessment into your teaching.
See more: Australian Professional Standards for Teachers Terminology Explained
Graduate
What does it look like?
At the Graduate level, teachers are expected to use curriculum, assessment and reporting knowledge to design learning sequences and lesson plans.
At the Graduate level, you are not expected to have much experience in the classroom yet. This means that at this level, this focus area is more about planning teaching and learning as opposed to doing.
You will need to be able to design a learning program based on the assessment requirements of the curriculum you are using, as well as the reporting requirements of your school. This doesn’t have to include everything that you would do if you were using this program to teach, but you will need to show that you know what you’re doing regarding assessment.
As you need to demonstrate that you are working at the Graduate level to graduate with a teaching degree in Australia, your university should give you plenty of opportunities and support to do this.
What evidence can I collect?
At the Graduate level, your uni assignments are usually enough. All universities should design their teaching programs so that you can demonstrate that you have reached the Graduate level of the standards.
What this will actually look like is a teaching and learning program that is based on curriculum and reporting requirements. You will probably be expected to use a backwards planning approach, where you start with the assessment task and what learning you expect your students to be able to demonstrate at the end of a unit before you begin planning their journey to get there.
Make sure that you annotate your evidence to show that you know about curricula and assessments to provide strong evidence against this descriptor.
Proficient
What does it look like?
At the Proficient level, teachers are expected to design and implement learning and teaching programs using knowledge of curriculum, assessment and reporting requirements.
The Proficient level of this focus area is almost the same as the Graduate level, except that now you are expected to implement your learning program. You will need to be in a school setting and a classroom to be able to do this, and it can be a struggle for relief teachers to implement their own learning programs.
What evidence can I collect?
The evidence for the Proficient level will look very similar to the evidence for the Graduate level, which is an annotated teaching and learning program. To provide evidence that you have implemented it, you will likely need a lesson observation.
Formal observations are a great way to provide evidence and improve your practice, but an informal observation and statement from the person observing you should also work in this instance. Getting a statement from a team teacher or mentor who has observed you teaching multiple lessons from the same learning program would make for even stronger evidence against this descriptor.
Highly Accomplished
What does it look like?
At the Highly Accomplished level, teachers are expected to support colleagues to plan and implement learning and teaching programs using contemporary knowledge and understanding of curriculum, assessment and reporting requirements.
As with most of the standards at the Highly Accomplished level, here you will need to show that you have supported your colleagues. If you’ve made it to the Proficient level and have planned and implemented a number of teaching and learning programs based on your knowledge of curriculum, assessment, and reporting requirements, this level should be an extra step.
What evidence can I collect?
You may need to make sure that you put yourself in a position to be able to gather evidence for this descriptor. You may need to lead a small group of teachers to do this, or simply work with the other teachers who teach the same subject to share the planning load.
For the evidence, you need to show that you have collaborated and supported. Just like the other career stages of this focus area, a plan or program with annotations is essential. Ideally, at this stage, you would also have some annotations from your colleagues, emails, or minutes of meetings. This shows that you have supported other teachers in their planning.
Another interesting piece of evidence may be your observations of other teachers’ lessons. This can demonstrate that you’ve supported them in implementing the program, especially if you discuss and document the feedback and conversations afterwards.
Lead
What does it look like?
At the Lead level, teachers are expected to lead colleagues to develop learning and teaching programs using comprehensive knowledge of curriculum, assessment and reporting requirements.
You will need to be more involved to reach the Lead career stage than Highly Accomplished. While it may seem like a minor change, leading a team differs from supporting colleagues. Curriculum coordinators will find this relatively easy as this is a core part of their job. If you aren’t in this position, there are still opportunities for you to lead a small working group.
What evidence can I collect?
You will need evidence that you took the lead in the change. A really easy way to do this is through a project brief or a proposal. This can clearly outline what outcome you want and how you will achieve it with an interested team, and so clearly places yourself in the lead.
Learn more about the other focus areas and descriptors for Standard 2:
2.1 Content and Teaching Strategies of the Teaching Area
2.2 Content Selection and Organisation
2.4 Understand and respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People to Promote Reconciliation
