Increasing confidence in assessments

An innovative tool designed to improve the consistency of teacher judgements about student progress is being made more widely available.

Education Minister Hekia Parata, today launched a new site that demonstrates how the Progress and Consistency Tool (PaCT) works.

“Ensuring consistent teacher judgements is essential for parents to have confidence that their children are making real progress,” says Ms Parata.

“This Government brought in National Standards to give parents more information about their children’s achievement. National Standards rely on teacher’s judgements. So to support teachers to make consistent judgements and to help streamline their workload, the PaCT was developed.”

The PaCT enables schools, kura and Communities of Learning | Kahui Ako to understand, track and respond to individual student progress and achievement against the New Zealand Curriculum.

It’s already being used by teachers at 500 schools with overwhelmingly positive feedback.

“This Government has invested about $700 million in digital infrastructure in schools, and I expect that teachers will make the most of digital tools, such as the PaCT, especially when we’re asking our students to upskill into the digital age.

“The new demonstration site means any one can now see how the PaCT works including parents, trainee teachers and schools who aren’t already using it,” says Ms Parata.

The demonstration site is a reproduction of the live version of the PaCT, but has been populated with mock student information.