Physical Education - moderator's newsletter
March 2009
This newsletter focuses on the following issues:
- Physical Education clarification document
- Evidence of practical application
- National Moderator's Report
- Moderator best practice workshops
- Performance standards
- Optional teacher-selected evidence for moderation.
Clarifications document
The Physical Education Clarifications document breaks down the sufficiency requirements and expectations for all of the Achievement Standards. The document has been developed using previous National Moderator's reports, achievement criteria, explanatory notes and issues noted by the moderators during the year. This document is designed to help teachers in their interpretation of the standards.
Evidence of practical application
Moderators require evidence of practical application in a number of the Physical Education Achievement Standards. Please see Collecting evidence for clarification of issues surrounding this.
National Moderator's Report
The National Moderator's Report for 2008 has been published. It has detailed feedback on issues found over the year in moderation. The feedback is written individually for each standard.
Moderator best practice workshops
Best practice workshops are being held across the country and repeat the workshops of November 2008. The emphasis is on achieving consistency of teacher judgements in particular focussing on student work at the grade boundaries. The workshop is particularly beneficial to new teachers, overseas teachers and those wanting to gain confidence in making teacher judgements against the standards. The dates for workshops are listed below and further details and registration information is available online.
| North Shore | April 20 | ||
| Whangarei | April 21 | ||
| Hamilton | October 6 | ||
| Christchurch | October 6 | ||
| Timaru | October 7 | ||
| Auckland West | October 8 | ||
| Dunedin | October 8 | ||
| New Plymouth | November 17 | ||
| Wellington | November 18 | ||
| Nelson | November 19 | ||
| Auckland Central | November 19 | ||
| Auckland South-East | November 20 |
Performance standards
The performance standards for levels 2 and 3 have been updated for the start of 2009. These replace any similar documents on TKI.
Optional teacher-selected evidence for moderation
Teachers now have the opportunity to submit up to four samples of assessed work for written, professional feedback from the moderator for the same standard and activity as the random selection that is submitted for moderation.
This presents teachers of Physical Education with an excellent opportunity to ask the moderator specific questions about student evidence. The feedback that is given to teachers is qualitative and is about discussing the process involved in making an assessment judgement rather than confirming a grade decision.
In the following table, the reason why the first three questions are regarded as being less suitable is that they do not give moderators the reason for the original assessor decision. The 'revised' versions of the questions allow us to see what specific clarification or confirmation teachers are seeking.
| Unsuitable questions | Helpful (or suitable) questions |
|---|---|
| Is this Achievement or Merit? | This work seems to be on the grade boundary. What evidence am I looking for in the student's work to distinguish between Achievement and Merit? |
| I think student (A) has Achieved and student (B) has Achieved with Merit. Do you agree? | Does the amount of detail provided by these two students provide adequate descriptions and explanations for Achievement and for Merit? I think that student B has achieved a higher grade than student A. What specific piece(s) of evidence determines the higher grade for student B than student A? |
| Is it OK that X is missing from the student's work? | I feel that the student has achieved with Excellence, but X is missing. Does the student need to include X to meet the standard required for Excellence? |