Innovative Assessment for Schools
Assessing Writing in Australia (Secondary)
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Schools have access to two nationally standardised Comparative Judgement windows at the start and end of year for Years 8 & 10. Together with a reliable and efficient measurement process, schools receive a scaled score, potential NAPLAN band indicator and student writing age. The data allows tracking of individuals, cohorts, and school to school comparison – demonstrating progress over time. Regular PD is available to support teacher knowledge of writing and help improve student achievement, in time for national testing and beyond.
Why are schools using us?
Speed
For a typical department with 8 teachers and 186 pupils, the judging takes one hour per teacher per year group.
Accuracy
Research consistently finds that Comparative Judgement delivers the accuracy of double or triple marking in a similar time or less than single marking.
Validity
The marks derived from judging are consistent with the average marks derived from double or triple marking essays.
Comparative Judgement in 4 easy steps!
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
1We set the task, so everyone is writing against the same prompt.
2Upload your pupils’ scripts on our specially coded paper.
3Judge writing, comparing two pieces of writing on screen, side-by-side to determine which is best.
4Benchmark attainment and progress across your school, and nationally, with the information and statistics in your school’s individual report.
Personalised Feedback Reports
The vital information of every pupil's attainment…
Here’s a summary of how it works
  • There are two assessment windows per year, one at the start of the year and one at the end of the year. See the full calendar here.
  • The assessments are for Years 8 & 10.
  • We set the writing tasks.
  • In each assessment you judge the work of your students as well as the work of students across the country.
  • You never directly compare the results of your students with students from other schools.
  • Rather, every 5th judgement is a moderation judgement where you compare the work of students from other schools.
  • Our judgement process ensures every script is externally standardised and all judging quality monitored in real time.
  • Once the judging is complete, you receive a full PDF report, including a scaled score, NAPLAN band indicator and writing age for every student. You ll also get a separate progress report once your students have taken part in more than one assessment.
  • You also get exclusive access to our new Writing Hub, which features teaching resources, student quizzes, and live professional development webinars.
Assessing Writing in Australia (Secondary)
Per school per annum
1 - 199 students
$500
200 - 499 students
$1,000
500+ students
$1,500
For primaries, the pricing is set based on the total number of students in the school,
and is a single fee inclusive of all national year group windows.
For secondaries, the cost is $500 as the project is designed for small intervention groups, not the whole cohort.
Benefits of Assessing Writing in Australia (Secondary)
Accuracy
Traditional marking is done to an accuracy of +/- 5 marks on a 40 mark scale. In our pilot study, teachers judged with +/- 2 marks accuracy.

Validity
The marks derived from judging are consistent with the average marks derived from double or triple marking essays.

Nationally-standardised results
Results are based on the performance of students in Australian schools and the judgements of Australian teachers.

Built-in moderation
As you are judging, you are also silently and anonymously moderating the judgements of other teachers.

Full technical support
Contact us using our online chatbox for a fast response.

Anonymised assessment
We provide answer sheets for students to write on. When you upload the completed sheets, our system reads the unique identifying code on each sheet. This means that the student names magically disappear, but our system knows who the writing belongs to.

Workload
Judging writing is quicker and easier than traditional marking.

Comparisons between years
You can directly compare the performance of students in different years.

Robust data controls
Every judge’s performance is recorded, and decisions made by inaccurate judges are removed from the results.

Exemplar scripts
After each assessment, we provide you with exemplar scripts from students across the country, which can be used in lessons or for PD.

Assess every script
With traditional moderation, most scripts are never seen by anyone other than the class teacher. With us, every script is seen twenty times.

Writing Hub
A separate website which shares all the insights from our assessments of over a million pieces of student writing. It features quizzes, teaching resources and live professional development webinars.
National Assessment Calendar
Comparative Judgement | Automark™