External assessment

External assessment

External assessments are any tasks set and assessed by the VCAA, including written, oral, electronic/digital, aural and performance tasks conducted according to the requirements of accredited study designs and VCE VET programs.

To uphold the integrity of VCE external assessments, students are expected to provide authentic and relevant responses to the questions asked, rather than rely on pre-prepared responses that are not their own.

The home school is responsible for the administration of all student data and course enrolments on VASS and for ensuring that all its students have been allocated to an examination centre or room. A student can have only one home school at any given time.

VCE examinations

VCE examinations are set by VCAA-appointed panels. VCE examination specifications, sample examination materials (by study), as well as an archive of past examinations and external assessment reports are available on the VCAA website.

Integrity of written examinations and examination administration

At the beginning of the academic year, schools must ensure that students are aware of the VCAA examination rules to ensure the integrity of VCE external assessments. By completing and signing the annual VCAA Student personal details and declarations form, students declare they will abide by and observe the rules and instructions relating to VCE external assessments.

VCE providers with students enrolled in one or more VCE or scored VCE VET Unit 3–4 sequences must meet the VCAA requirements for conducting and administering VCE examinations, as outlined in the Agreement to conduct and administer VCE external assessments.

Principals must complete and sign this agreement each year, certifying they will comply with all VCAA requirements for conducting and administering VCE external assessments. Principals must make sure school personnel associated with the administration of VCE external assessments are aware of VCAA requirements.

Principals are reminded of the serious consequences that may result from non-compliance. If a serious breach of this agreement occurs, a school’s authorisation to host VCE external assessments will be subject to review.

VCAA examination rules

Students are required to observe VCAA examination rules for the conduct of external assessments conducted by or on behalf of the VCAA, and the day-to-day rules of the school or institution providing the venue for the assessment. VCAA rules apply with appropriate and reasonable modifications for students with a disability or impairment.

Eligibility to undertake VCE external assessments outside Victoria

Students who sit VCE examinations must be resident in Victoria and enrolled at a school or institution approved by the VCAA as a VCE provider, except if a student:

• is a bona fide resident of Victoria but is temporarily interstate or overseas
• is on an exchange program overseas
• is a student on exchange in Victoria and is returning home immediately before or during the VCE external assessment period
• is representing Australia in an official capacity, for example, at a sporting, academic, military or cultural event
• has a parent or guardian who has been asked to work interstate or overseas
• is a bona fide resident of Victoria who has completed a substantial part of their VCE Unit 3–4 course of study in Victoria and has moved temporarily or permanently interstate or overseas.

Schools must submit an Application to sit VCE external assessments interstate or overseas form to the VCAA.

Evidence of eligibility must be submitted with the application form.

Events such as family holidays, travelling, birthdays and weddings are not considered valid grounds for an application to sit VCE external assessments interstate or overseas.

External assessment periods and timetable

The VCAA determines the timing of VCE external assessments. Schools must issue each student with an individual student examination/assessment timetable after the release date for each VCE external assessment period. For VCE Languages oral and performance examinations and the Extended Investigation oral presentation, schools must issue each student with their advice slips and, where relevant, Performance Program Sheets/Performer’s Statement, Statements of Intention, Industry Statements, Interpretation Statements and Information Booklets. These documents are available on the relevant study webpage and on VASS.

The VCAA develops the VCE examination timetable using enrolment data. In developing the examination timetable, the VCAA endeavours to:

• minimise the number of students required to sit more than 2 examinations on a given day
• minimise the number of clashes of 2 examinations in the same session
• avoid scheduling another examination on the same day as English and EAL
• allow sufficient time to complete marking within the available timeframe.

The VCE examination timetable is published on the VCAA website after VCAA Board approval.

The VCE examination timetable is also printed in the VCE Exams Navigator, which must be issued to students by their home school.

Students with 3 examinations timetabled on one day

The VCAA will notify schools of the arrangements made for students with 3 examinations timetabled in a single day during an examination period.

The VCAA will allow students with 3 examinations timetabled on a single day to have an additional 10 minutes per hour for the final examination. This can be taken as extra working time or as supervised rest breaks. Students are not obliged to use the extra time entitlement and can leave the examination before their revised finish time.

Students who complete 3 examinations in a single day will receive a DES for the third examination. These students are not required to apply for a DES.

To be eligible for additional time and the DES, students must attend all 3 examinations on the day and attempt the questions on the paper to the best of their ability.

To be eligible for the calculation of a DES, students must have completed the course of study leading to the examination and have a result for at least one other graded assessment in the same study.

The DES should be considered a safety net. If they apply themselves diligently, many students will exceed or equal their predicted DES in their third examination. The VCAA will compare each student’s actual examination score and their calculated DES and award the student the higher of the 2.

Timetable clashes

If a student has 2 examinations timetabled for the same session, one of the examinations will be moved to another session on the same day. Principals may consult the student and, on behalf of the student, request which examination is to be moved to a different session.

While all attempts will be made to work around timetable clashes, the VCAA is unable to move VCE Languages examinations, Music written examinations and VET Creative and Digital Media examinations.

Early starts

Principals can apply to the VCAA (with supporting evidence) for permission to begin VCE written external assessments up to 30 minutes earlier than stated in the official timetable. The VCAA will confirm approval in writing to the principal to begin at the earlier time. The principal must notify students and their parent(s) or guardian(s) in writing of the new start and finish times.

Late arrivals

Each VCE written external assessment begins with a reading period that is included in the times shown in the VCE examination timetable. Students must check the starting time of each VCE written external assessment, arrive before the commencement time and familiarise themselves with the rules about late admission. If a student is late, the VCAA reserves the right to determine whether their response materials will be accepted.

The procedure for admitting late students is outlined in the VCAA examination rules and is also published in the VCE Examination Manual and VCE Exams Navigator.

Student identification requirements for VCE external assessments

All students undertaking a performance examination, Languages oral examination or the Extended Investigation oral presentation will need to provide personal identification at the registration point for their assessment. The personal identification must include a clear photograph of the student and their full name. Most existing student identification cards or personal documents (for example, a school ID card, a public transport ID card, a passport or a driver’s licence) are sufficient. Students undertaking the oral component of the VCE Languages examination will need to identify themselves by stating, in English, their VCAA student number.

School uniform must not be worn by students to performance examinations, Languages oral examinations or Extended Investigation oral presentations.

Students completing the GAT or a VCE written examination must write their VCAA student number on the response materials. Students attending a location other than their home school may also need to provide personal identification before entering the examination room.

A student’s home school provides them with their VCAA student number.

Materials and equipment authorised for use in the GAT and VCE written examinations

Refer to Authorised materials and equipment. This information can also be found in the VCE Examination Manual, the GAT brochure and VCE Exams Navigator.

Irregularities

Irregularities are events that significantly interrupt and adversely affect a student’s performance immediately before or during a VCE external assessment that are outside their control. Examples of events that can occur and be classified as an irregularity include:

• power failures, emergency evacuations and other disruptive events
• printing, collating errors or both in examination question and answer books
• excessive noise or interference
• incorrect interpretation of examination conditions or rules by supervisors
• procedural issues with the conduct of Languages oral or performance examinations, or the Extended Investigation oral presentation

If reasonably possible and practical, minor disruptions will be rectified and remedied at the time of the external assessment by the supervisor, for example, replacing faulty books.

In the event of major disruptions to the conduct or administration of an external assessment, the supervisor should refer the matter to an authorised person at the school.

For more information, refer to the advice on irregularities on the Examination rules webpage, the VCE Examination Manual and VCE Exams Navigator.

Marking external assessments

External assessments will be subject to independent marking by VCAA-appointed assessors. If necessary, there will be discrepancy marking by an additional assessor who will assess the task without knowledge of the previous assessments.

Indicative grades and the anomalous grades check

Schools must submit indicative grades before the relevant external assessment period for all VCE external assessments, except the Music Composition and Music Inquiry externally assessed tasks. The primary purpose of collecting these indicative grades is to support the quality assurance procedures for marking external assessments. Indicative grades assist in identifying possible anomalous marking of individual student responses. Indicative grades will also be used in the calculation of the DES.

The indicative grade is the school’s prediction of a student’s actual level of achievement on the examination. Indicative grades are letter grades, from A+ to E/UG (ungraded) or NA (not assessed). Schools should note that plus (+) can be used, but minus (-) is not available for input. Class teachers of the same study at the school should discuss and compare the indicative grades given to their students.

The rank order and level of spread of the indicative grades for the school cohort in the study are extremely important. VCAA moderates the school cohort’s indicative grades to ensure they are statistically reliable. If they are not, they will not be used.

Strategies for arriving at an indicative grade

The VCAA has no preferred position on how a school arrives at a set of indicative grades, except to advise that the process should be defensible. The principal should advise all teachers at the school on the definition and purpose of the indicative grade, and how to arrive at a set of indicative grades for each student cohort.

Examples of strategies used by schools include:

• setting practice examinations that must be held at a time that allows entry of the indicative grade on VASS by the due date
• ranking the students by performance in school-based assessment and then applying an appropriate grade
• basing the grade on prior knowledge of the relative ability of the student in the study.

The VCAA recommends schools use the indicative grades feedback report on VASS to help determine indicative grades. This report shows if the school’s indicative grades for the previous year were generally aligned with the final grades. The indicative grades feedback report is available on VASS.

Anomalous grades check process

For all external assessments, except for General Mathematics Examination 1 and the Music Composition and Music Inquiry externally assessed tasks, an anomalous grade check is undertaken before issuing final results. Indicative grades provided by the school, if they are statistically reliable, are used to identify student assessments with anomalous grades. The relevant chief assessor’s panel reconsiders these students’ assessments.

The anomalous grades check highlights where the student’s examination outcome is substantially different from that predicted by one or more of the following:

• the school’s indicative grade
• the student’s GAT component scores
• another examination assessment in the study for studies with more than one external assessment.

In each case, the differences must be statistically significant.

In the students’ interests, teachers should be as accurate as possible when estimating an indicative grade. If the teacher is accurate (that is, they allocate indicative grades with a similar order and spread to external assessment performance of their students), any possible anomalous marking will be detected, and the assessment referred to the chief assessor for checking. If the teacher allocates indicative grades that are different in order and spread to the external assessment performance of their students, some anomalous assessments might not be detected. If the teacher consistently under or over assesses indicative grades for all students, anomalous performance from the pattern given by the school can still be detected. Therefore, a school need not be overly concerned about submitting indicative grades with exactly the correct level within the constraints of the grade structure. However, teachers should try to order and spread students’ grades as accurately as possible.

Schools can run a VASS report that lists those students whose scripts or recordings were forwarded to the chief assessor’s panel for final determination.

Process for externally assessed tasks

Assessors appointed by the VCAA mark externally assessed tasks using the assessment criteria for those tasks published by the VCAA.

All student work is submitted to the VCAA electronically in accordance with the specifications and guidelines provided for each study and on the dates published in the Important administrative dates. Teachers must make an initial assessment of a student’s work against the published criteria using the marking sheet provided. These initial teacher scores are entered on VASS and are used by the VCAA for quality assurance purposes and to inform marking of external assessments.

At least 2 assessors independently mark all externally assessed tasks. If required, the marking is subject to discrepancy marking. Anomalous grade marking programs are not applied to all externally assessed tasks. However, additional checks are conducted for quality of marking and, where applicable, compliance issues and authentication of student work. Student work may be reassessed as a result of these processes.

For more detailed information about the Music Composition, Music Inquiry or Extended Investigation externally assessed task, refer to the relevant study pages on the VCAA website.