Government of Western Australia

The Authority’s moderation processes help ensure the comparability of school marks and grades. Comparability between schools occurs when the same result in the same course unit has the same value across the state. This helps ensure fairness of marking and grading for students. It also maintains the credibility of school marks and grades.

Establishing comparability for school marks and grades across schools requires the Authority to:

• provide syllabus documents which clearly indicate to schools the knowledge, skills and understandings that should be taught state-wide
• develop assessment requirements that schools must follow in terms of assessment types and weightings
• ensure teachers have a common understanding of the standards to be applied
• statistically adjust school marks for ATAR courses based on the performance of students in the ATAR course examination.

• develops its structured education program based on the syllabus and implements this program
• develops its assessment program to reflect the assessment requirements of the syllabus and implements this program
• implements the Authority’s grading procedures to achieve course standards
• participates in the Authority's consensus moderation meetings and school moderation program.

• a quality syllabus for each course unit, which clearly specifies the content and assessment requirements
• grade descriptions which are the criteria for assigning a grades for each course unit
• quality assessment support materials for teachers which are available from the course page on the Authority extranet
• seminars/workshops for teachers to enhance understanding of the syllabus, assessment requirements and course standards
• a moderation process involving consensus moderation meetings, small group moderation partnerships and a school moderation program.