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Massey University’s College of Education in Palmerston North hosted its second assessment conference in the September school holidays. More than 500 delegates from all school and education sectors listened to keynote addresses by Dr Rose Hipkins, Professor Helen Timperley, and the corporate adventurer Kevin Biggar, and participated in a wide range of workshops, many of which were run by practising teachers.

Feedback from participants refers to the mix and vigour of the conversations in workshops and at breaks. One email reads: “The Assessment Conference was terrific, and it was great to talk to like-minded people and to share discussion about formative practice … It was brilliant to see and share ideas with people who were there from 'Northland to the Bluff'.”

The conference was organised by Brian Coles, Director of AtoL (Assess to Learn) at Massey, and supported by AtoL teams across the country. AtoL teams provide professional development for schools in formative assessment.

Find contacts for your nearest AtoL team.

Find out more about formative assessment.

• The change in student voice and teacher practice - University of Waikato
• Student-led conferences are a great success - Greta Valley School
• Students assess themselves and each other - St Peter's College, Gore
• Assessment for learning day by day
• Focusing on sustainability - Gracefield Primary School
• A schoolwide approach to assessment for learning - Onewhero Area School
• A learning community - Dargaville Intermediate
• Consistency in assessment - Te Kuiti High School

PAT: Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary (Revised)
Year levels 4 – 10
These tests are primarily designed to help classroom teachers determine achievement levels of their students in reading comprehension and reading vocabulary.  The test results will help teachers to make informed decisions about the kinds of teaching materials, methods, and programmes that are most suitable for their students.

The New Zealand Curriculum
Explore The New Zealand Curriculum online and link to a range of resources and support materials.
http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/

New Assessment Resource Banks (ARB) – Latest resources
Take a look at the nine new English resources: two at level 2, two at level 3, two at level 4, and three at level 5. Register to access the ARB material through the ARB home page.

• A 30-minute video and PowerPoint presentation by Rosemary Hipkins - An introduction to the key competencies.
• An NZCER report by Sally Boyd and Verena Watson from the normal schools' key competencies exploration during 2006 – Shifting the Frame: Exploring the Integration of the Key Competencies at Six Normal Schools.

Useful assessment resources

Websites and book titles that teachers may find useful for assessment have been added to the Reference and Online Resources sections of this website.

Māori medium exemplars
Te reo Māori, pāngarau, pūtaiao, and hangarau exemplars are now available online.

Writing and tuhituhi exemplars
This page has links to PDF files that contain enhanced images of the student writing scripts found in the asTTle V4 manual under the heading Writing/Tuhituhi. These images are suitable for printing at full page size for professional learning activities.

Reporting Student Achievement
This online workshop helps schools assess how they report student achievement. It provides practical guidelines to assist schools streamline the reporting of student data while retaining the quality of the student information. (PowerPoint 245KB)

School stories about teaching, learning and assessment
Read these recent stories of how some schools have improved their assessment practices and modified their teaching programmes to provide the most appropriate learning opportunities for students.
Christ the King School, Mt Roskill
Parkvale School, Hastings
St Mary’s, Papakura
Taitoko School, Levin
West Eyreton School, Rangiora

Digital stories about Assessment

• Parkvale School – ‘Building success and consistency’
• Pakaraka School – ‘Clustering for success’

These 2005 digital stories from LeadSpace highlight the thinking and strategies being applied to improve outcomes and benefits for students, staff, and communities. The stories focus on building relationships with the community, enhancing teaching and learning, measuring achievement, planning for the digital future and developing principal capabilities. Each story is accompanied by a video or video interview of/with the school leader.

Check out some of the other Digital Stories which focus on the impact of leadership on learning and teaching in practical ways.

New resources for English, Mathematics, and Science are now available on the ARBs site. You need to be a registered user to access this material. To register for access to the ARB material, go to the ARB homepage.

Assessment information for parents and whānau
This collection is for parents and family members of students at New Zealand schools. It has information about assessment for learning, assessment used in schools, how to find out what your children are learning, and how you can help.

Planning for Better Student Outcomes
This resource provides key questions, examples and resources to assist in the process of thinking, planning, and managing strategically for school improvement and will support school charter development.

Publications – What Matters Most? and Planning for Better Student Outcomes

This page contains What Matters Most? and is an index to all issues of Planning for Better Student Outcomes. These publications provide further information about gathering and using evidence to determine the priorities for teaching and learning and include specific advice on planning and reporting requirements for schools.

Self-regulated Learning
The ARCT (Assessment Research for Classroom Teachers) project promotes classroom-based research and informs the development of new ARB resources. A summary of the recent focus on self-regulated learning is now available at http://arb.nzcer.org.nz/supportmaterials/research.php#SRL and looks at self-regulated learning in English, science, and maths.

What Next is an indexed database of educational resources. Teachers can use What Next in conjunction with the Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning (asTTle) available on the asTTle CD-ROM or as a standalone resource. Materials have been indexed by curriculum levels 2 to 6 for reading, writing, pānui, tuhituhi, mathematics and pāngarau.

Curriculum Update 54
Using Assessment Tools / Te Whakamahi i Ngā Pūnaha Aromatawai.
This issue is about using assessment tools to promote learning.

TKI Kete
Using the TKI kete function will allow you to save different types of resources, including websites, in your own space on TKI. This way you can access your favourites from any computer with Internet access. The kete function is now available on the Assessment tools search page, enabling you to store favourite ARBs, exemplars, or asTTle resources in one place. To find out more, click on the links above.

CD ROM asTTle Version 4
Contact Ministry of Education ICT HelpDesk for a copy for your school on 0800 CALL ICT (0800 22 55 42).

A feedback questionnaire on asTTle 4.
Does this website answer your questions and have the information you need? Let the asTTle team know how you are getting on with asTTle 4 in your school by taking a few minutes to answer this questionnaire.