National external moderation for Literacy and Numeracy unit standards

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Moderation submission requirements

Schools

• Submit four randomly-selected learner samples.

Tertiary Education Organisations (TEOs)

• Submit three learner samples, selected according to your organisation’s policy and procedures.

For each learner sample, schools and TEOs submit:

• learner evidence
• Assessed Work cover sheet for each set of learner evidence
• information that supports the learner evidence against the standard’s requirements (documented on the Assessed Work cover sheet).  Include information about:
  • the naturally occurring context
  • the activity.

Submit materials for each standard under:

• Tertiary Moderation Cover Sheet (DOC, 80KB).

Note, although both the Secondary and Tertiary Moderation Cover Sheets indicate that the assessment activity and assessment schedule should be included with your moderation submission, this is not applicable to the Literacy and Numeracy unit standards (as they should be assessed on the basis of naturally occurring evidence).

Assessed Work cover sheets 

The Assessed Work cover sheet specific to each Literacy and Numeracy unit standard must be used with submissions for national external moderation.  This ensures necessary information about the activity and context is provided with the evidence for each learner, and requirements of the standard not generally visible within learner evidence are attested to by the assessor.  The Assessed Work cover sheet also specifies standard requirements and provides judgement statements.

Moderation submission guidelines

The learner evidence and documentation that is required for national external moderation is the same as that required for assessment (when the assessor is not also the evidence gatherer) and internal moderation.

Portfolio content and clarity

The portfolio submitted for national external moderation is required to show only the evidence on which the assessor has based their final assessment decision for the Literacy or Numeracy unit standard(s).  Extra material should not be included.  However, where a portfolio submitted to national external moderation does contain more learner evidence than the assessor based their final assessment decision on, that evidence used for the Literacy or Numeracy unit standard(s) must be clearly identified and labelled.

Moderation seeks to verify the assessor decision, based on the evidence that the assessor made their decision on.  If the evidence upon which the assessor based their decision is not clearly identified or labelled, the moderator may not be able to verify the assessor decision.

Please take care to ensure copies of learner evidence and associated documentation submitted for national external moderation are legible.

Information to show the evidence is naturally occurring

The documentation submitted for national external moderation must reflect that learner evidence has occurred naturally, and has been generated over time (refer explanatory notes 2 and 3 of the standards).

Information to show the evidence is naturally occurring may consist of a brief description for each activity of the situation or context in which the evidence was gathered or the activity occurred. For example, the evidence may have come from mathematics class work, or a social study project, science exam or workplace activity. This information should be captured on the specific Assessed Work cover sheet.  However, if this information is already recorded in detail on the activity, please cross-reference it on the cover sheet.

Key information about each activity

Certain information about each activity (such as the problem being solved, or the purpose and audience for a piece of writing) is critical in order to determine whether the requirements of the standard have been met.  This key information must be provided within each submission for national external moderation.  If it is not, the moderator may not be able to verify the assessor decision.

Examples of the key information about (or resources for) the activity that must be supplied for each standard are:

• a brief description of the purpose and audience for each text (for standard 26622 Write to communicate ideas for a purpose and audience)
• what the problems were that the learner was solving (for standards 26623 Use number to solve problems, and 26627 Use measurement to solve problems)
• copies of actual texts read (or a representative sample) and their context/source (for 26624 Read texts with understanding); alternatively, if the text is freely available on the internet, the link could be provided
• a brief description of the purpose of, and other participant(s) involved, in the spoken interaction (for standard 26625 Actively participate in spoken interactions)
• the purpose for which the learner was interpreting the statistical information, and the data set used (for standard 26626 Interpret statistical information for a purpose).

This activity information should be captured on the specific Assessed Work cover sheet, or if recorded or included elsewhere in the learner’s portfolio, clearly cross-referenced on the cover sheet. 

Learner evidence

Actual learner evidence must be submitted for national external moderation. The learner evidence involved will depend on the nature and requirements of the standard.  It could consist of any one or combination of the following:

• learner responses
• samples of writing
• samples of workings to solve problems
• signed and dated verifications of authenticity
• signed and dated verifications of observed performance (e.g. by a sports coach or workplace supervisor)
• signed and dated detailed observation sheets
• digital recordings.

All evidence submitted must be dated so it is clear that it has occurred “over time” (as required by explanatory note 3 of the standards). The date/s should reflect when the activity occurred/learner evidence was generated, not when the assessor collected the evidence.

For standard 26625, please be aware that documented or recorded learner evidence is required for all three interactions in submissions for national external moderation.

Oral or practical demonstration evidence

Any oral learner responses or practical demonstrations need to be recorded or documented sufficiently to be verified as valid evidence. 

Where evidence is oral or a practical demonstration, suitable learner evidence might consist of one or more of:

• a detailed observation sheet, signed and dated, that contains all the standard’s requirements
• observer comments regarding what the learner said and did
• actual visual evidence (naturally occurring evidence might already be recorded digitally for other purposes).
• actual words spoken by the learner, signed and dated by the listener.

Please note, for standard 26625 Actively participate in spoken interactions, observation sheets (or equivalent) with commentary regarding the learner's performance(s) will be required if it has not been digitally recorded. 

For an example of a detailed observation sheet, see the 26625 Observation sheet (PDF, 263KB) for standard 26625 Actively participate in spoken interactions.

For examples of the kind of evidence to be documented on the observation sheet for standard 26625 Actively participate in spoken interactions, refer to the annotated exemplars for this standard.

Audio/Visual digital evidence

If digital evidence is submitted for national external moderation and the recording is of a group, the learner whose performance is being assessed must be clearly identified (using the moderation digital evidence cover sheet).  If only part of a learner’s submitted evidence is relevant to the standard being assessed, then the relevant evidence should be clearly flagged for ease of identification.

Assessment Tool evidence

Please refer to Literacy and Numeracy Assessment Tool evidence for information about how evidence from the Assessment Tool may contribute towards the Literacy and Numeracy unit standards, and what to include in submissions for moderation.