St John Fisher College
ELEMENT FOUR: Monitoring and Evaluation
Processes used at St John Fisher College for monitoring and evaluating student achievement in RE are similar to those used in all other curriculum areas of the College.
Whole School Processes
As a curriculum area similar to all other curriculum areas in the College, RE is taught, assessed, reported and evaluated in the same way as other subject areas. A detailed outline of the College’s Assessment Policy and Procedures is contained within the Staff Handbook (p. 83-94), while the RE Dept. Handbook (p 6-7) contains general processes for assessment, reporting and evaluating. (See both Handbooks in EVIDENCE)
Moderation
The moderation of assessment tasks occurs on a number of informal and formal levels at St John Fisher College. At the planning stage, teachers agree on the line of sight between the Achievement Standard, Knowledge, Understanding and Skills, and diverse assessment tasks which are similar in standard. The lead teacher at each year level appointed for the term, ensures that the task and Criteria Standards Matrix has the agreement of the team of teachers and is approved by the Curriculum Leader (APRE) prior to distribution. This lead teacher (Highlighted in yellow in RE Dept. Staff in EVIDENCE) is responsible for coordinating a moderation meeting of these subject teachers prior to the return of student results, to ensure that all have applied the same correction standards to student work. This involves teachers meeting with sample assessment tasks from their class, in order to establish equity in marking through discussion. On occasion, where there are multiple parts to a task, one teacher may mark a section for the whole cohort.
CTJ Day in October of each year provides the opportunity for a formal intra-school moderation of assessment task where teachers bring annotated samples of work “at standard” and “above standard”. In 2015, this involved St John Fisher College teachers meeting with staff from St Patrick’s College, Shorncliffe and Mary MacKillop College, Nundah to confirm judgements.
Reporting
Reporting occurs formally, with reports issued for all subjects studied, including Religious Education, twice a year. (See Sample Report in EVIDENCE.)
The College’s reporting processes are as follows:
An Interim Report is issued in May, providing general information to families in the areas: Academic Progress, Commitment to Studies and Class Engagement.
In July and November, a full report including grades for Overall Achievement and Criteria used in the Assessment tasks is provided to parents. Diagnostic comments of approximately 50 words per subject are also given.
Evaluating Student Achievement
Planning and evaluating the effectiveness of assessment processes at St John Fisher occurs at the end of each semester when the AP Curriculum and the APRE meet to analyse the data which the BI tool makes available in the subject area. (See EVIDENCE for SRS cohort report Year 8 RE Semester 1 data obtained from BI). Data such as this can therefore enable the review of individual class results, a comparison of an individual student’s results with that of her previous semester or a comparison with previous cohort results. Making use of data in this way has a two-fold purpose in that it enables a review of the past unit of work but also enables planning for future curriculum and assessment. This is of much more value than anecdotal evidence of class and year by year comparisons, and is a tool which will have greater strategic importance as teachers become more comfortable with its use.
