For many teachers, few planning tasks eat into a weekend quite like building assessment that tells you something useful about how a student is tracking, rather than just producing another mark for the gradebook. Add in reporting deadlines, curriculum demands and increasingly complex classrooms, and carving out time to design assessment that's both meaningful and manageable has become one of the profession's quieter pressure points.
Recognising this, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has released a new suite of free, evidence-informed resources designed to strengthen formative assessment practice in classrooms nationwide.
Funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, the resources give teachers practical, curriculum-aligned tools and examples, and were developed to save time in planning while lifting the consistency of assessment across the country.
Formative assessment refers to the short, low-stakes checks on learning, from quizzes and classroom discussions to comprehension questions, that teachers use to gauge how students are progressing and adjust their teaching accordingly.
ACARA CEO Stephen Gniel said the new resources place curriculum firmly at the centre of assessment design.
“ACARA’s new formative assessment resources place curriculum at the centre of formative assessment design, helping teachers make clearer links between teaching and assessment,” Gniel said.
“These tools support teachers to design and use formative assessment against the Australian Curriculum, helping them understand how students are progressing in their learning and what their next steps should be.”
Gniel said the resources have also been built with flexibility in mind, and speak directly to the workload pressures teachers are under.
“We know that teachers face considerable workload challenges. That’s why these resources are designed to reduce workload by giving teachers practical, ready-to-use tools that will save them time in planning and design and support consistent practice across Australian classrooms.”
The resources were developed over an 18-month period of research and consultation with teachers, assessment experts, jurisdictions and education stakeholders from across Australia.
Dr Tom Porta, a Lecturer in Education at Adelaide University and one of the academic experts involved in the project, said the timing could not be more significant.
“There has never been a more important time in education to prioritise formative assessment,” Porta said. “These new national formative assessment resources from ACARA provide teachers with a clear structure for designing and implementing effective practices and the flexibility to adapt these approaches with professional autonomy.”
Already making a difference in classrooms
At Sacred Heart Primary School in Pearce, ACT, teachers have been using the resources since the start of the school year, and Principal David Austin says the impact has been immediate.
“ACARA’s formative assessment resources have been an outstanding support for our school. The materials available on the Australian Curriculum website have significantly strengthened our teachers’ shared understanding of formative assessment,” Austin said.
“Our teachers are using the selector tool and assessment design guides to create high-quality, curriculum-aligned, formative assessments.”
Austin said the shift has changed how staff think about assessment altogether.
“This has increased their confidence in the validity of the evidence they collect and enhanced their ability to use this evidence to inform their next teaching steps, which maximises the impact on student progress,” he said.
“Most importantly, these resources have helped our staff strengthen the connection between curriculum, assessment design and responsive teaching. As a result, assessment is increasingly being used to improve learning, rather than simply measure it.”