Preparing for consultation and Application 2

Preparing for consultation and Application 2

Welcome to Preparing for consultation and Application 2 for lead endorsers.

Acknowledgment of Country

The QCAA acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet today.

We pay our respects to their Elders and their descendants, who continue cultural and spiritual connections to Country, and we extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today.

We thank them for sharing their cultures and spiritualities and recognise the important contribution of this knowledge to our understanding of this place we call home.

Roles and responsibilities

The purpose of this recording is to outline the Application 2 process for lead endorsers. Application 2 is available to schools for assessment that was not endorsed at Application 1. Application 2 can also include a consultation process, if schools require clarification about their directives.

Endorsement is a collaborative effort.

The endorsement of assessment instruments is a collaborative effort between schools, lead endorsers and the QCAA.

Schools consider their students, their resources (both physical and human) and other school business that influence how they implement their syllabus when they first develop their assessment instruments and when revising their assessment at Application 1 to address the directives they received.

The QCAA manages the endorsement process and timelines to support both schools and lead endorsers. If required, learning area PEOs provide subject-specific advice and the endorsement team provides a guidance about the process and procedures. Operations coordinators from the internal assessment operations unit can assist lead endorsers with pay-related queries.

Lead endorsers bring their subject expertise and knowledge of quality assessment design to support schools who seek consultation and to review resubmitted assessment instruments.

The endorsement workflow: Application 2

Schools receive their endorsement decision for Application 1 approximately one week after the endorsement meeting.

If the assessment instrument is not endorsed it moves into the Application 2 phase. This is summarised in the diagram shown here, taken from the endorsement workflow in the Endorser manual,which you will find on the assessor webpage.

Schools can consult with the lead endorser who completed the endorsement decision to seek clarification about the directives provided, before they revise their assessment instruments for Application 2. Consultation is initiated by the school.

Schools must revise the assessment instrument based on directives provided for Application 1. Schools can resubmit assessment from the day they receive their Application 1 decision. They must resubmit the assessment instrument by the due date indicated in the Endorsement application and the SEP calendar.

Lead endorsers conduct consultation and Application 2 reviews outside of their school hours so that they can be paid directly for their work. Timelines for lead endorsers to complete Application 2 reviews are provided in the SEP calendar.

Endorsement decisions for Application 2 are published to schools as they are completed in the Endorsement application.

Preparing for Application 2

Before the initial endorsement meeting the QCAA assigns schools to lead endorsers. The lead endorser remains assigned to their schools to the completion of the whole endorsement event. For this reason, if you are not available until the end of Application 2 please let your syllabus PEO and endorsement assessors know as soon as possible.

The timelines for Application 2, including consultation, are communicated to assessors and schools through the endorsement application and the SEP calendar.

To support the Application 2 process there are some steps we require lead endorsers to complete following the endorsement meeting for Application 1 in the lead up to the Application 2. Lead endorsers inform schools about their availability to participate in consultation by inputting their availability for consultation into the Endorsement application.

Consultation should not be scheduled in ‘school time’ (when your school is paying you to complete work-related activities). If you have a flexible working hours you can reflect this in your availability, but avoid providing spares or lunch breaks.

Be realistic about the times you nominate. The teachers you are possibly consulting with will be unlikely to select very early or evening time slots.

Setting your consultation availability

Before the consultation period begins, you need to add the days and times that you are available for consultation in the Endorsement application.

To do this you need to:

• find the Consultation hours link in the ribbon at the top of your screen (shown here as 1). Select the completion year and event. Remember that in August we endorse assessment for the following year
• select your first day and add the time you are available from and the final time you are available. Remember that a school consultation could be as long as an hour, but in the first instance it would be about 15 minutes. You can always negotiate a follow-up session it is going longer than anticipated.

When you’ve finished entering your times for that session, click on the plus sign at the end of the row, shown here as step 7. This will add a new row for your next day or a session later in the same day.

While consultation conversations should occur out of school hours, please consider what is feasible for yourself and the teacher that you are consulting with. Very late or very early time slots are unlikely to be popular times. You should not be adding times while you are ‘on the clock’ for your school, as we pay you directly, not TRS to your school. However, if you have a flexible timetable at your school that allows you to start later or finish earlier, you can work with those parameters.

If a school does not seek a consultation, do not initiate a consultation, even if you see they have made errors when revising their assessment. We will discuss this further in the presentation.

During the consultation phase

In the week of consultation, lead endorsers:

• manage their consultation schedule, for schools that have initiated consultation.
• conducts consultation by phone or email and maintains a consultation record for payment purposes.
• reviews the resubmitted assessment instrument and completes the Assessment evaluation.

Receiving and confirming a request for consultation

When a school submits a request for a consultation through the Endorsement application, you will receive an email notification from the endorsement inbox.

That email will include the information provided by the school including the name of the person, their school, the subject and the assessment instrument number. The school will also indicate their preferred method of consultation — by email or telephone.

When you receive this email, please contact the sender by locating their contact details from within the body of the email, shown here with the 4. Confirm with them that the time they have selected is suitable, or propose another time.

Please do not reply directly to the autogenerated email as it will be sent to the endorsement inbox instead of the person at the school.

Accessing the consultation queue

During the consultation phase of endorsement, any schools with requests for consultation will be displayed here in the Assessment and consultation request section.

The link that says Show will let you see the assessment instrument that was reviewed at Application 1 and the directives that were provided.

When you are consulting with schools, we strongly recommend you work in the Consultation tab. This will stop you accidentally locking the assessment instrument on the school during Application 2. The View link will show you the assessment instrument in its current form, which could include revisions made by the school after receiving their directives.

Viewing assessment that is submitted before the due date

When a school has submitted their assessment it will appear in your Ready for review tab. Some schools will revise and resubmit their assessment prior to seeking consultation, so please be aware of the following information, so that you do not inadvertently prevent the school from being able to make further updates to their task in the lead up to the submission deadline.

Using View will allow the school to recall, revise and resubmit prior to the resubmission due date if needed.

Selecting Evaluate will start the formal evaluation process. You will then be able to view the Assessment evaluation form alongside the assessment instrument. Selecting Evaluate will prevent the school recalling the assessment instrument and prevent further editing of the task, even if you do not start completing the form.

We recommend only using the View link during the consultation phase and up to the submission due date. During this window of time, if the assessment instrument has been submitted and meets the requirement for endorsement then the evaluation form can be completed, but hold off evaluating an assessment instrument if there are further changes needed.

Supporting schools

Remember, when conducting a consultation:

• listen actively so that you can identify whether the person you are speaking with understands the directives and the actions that need to be taken
• be mindful of pressures and stress. Some teachers may be teaching subjects they are not familiar with or are doing their best to manage outside pressures
• be consistent with language and focus to avoid confusion and help build assessment literacy
• refer to syllabus, handbook and any other relevant documents such as the subject report, to help schools help themselves on their assessment literacy journey
• make notes after the conversation so that you can effectively manage the schools in your queue. The school may request a follow-up email or call
• if the conversation becomes heated, further information or advice is needed from the QCAA or if it is not the right place and time to continue the conversation, please end it and reschedule.

Supporting schools

This table outlines what lead endorsers are expected to do, and clarifies what they are not expected to do.

If at any time the consultation and Application 2 process becomes challenging, such as heated conversations or schools asking to consult after the close of consultation, please contact the endorsement team for further advice.

For lead endorsers assigned to offshore Queensland schools, you may receive additional information about the best consultation process to manage international time zones and technology issues.

Before the close of Application 2

Lead endorsers review the resubmitted assessment instrument and completes the Assessment evaluation.

The number of reviews that are completed is automatically captured by the Endorsement app when you submit the Assessment evaluation.

If you emailed or spoke to a school during consultation, you will need to inform the QCAA by completing the Consultation notes in the Endorsement app and identify how long you spent in consultation. We only ever use timesheets during Application 1 reviews (in other words, during the meeting). At application 2 and intervention all the data is collected directly from the Endorsement application.

Conducting an Application 2 review

To conduct a review of the Application 2 assessment click on the Evaluate button. This will present you with the assessment instrument and the assessment evaluation, just like the Assessment evaluations you completed for Application 1. However, at Application 2 there is only a lead endorser review; endorsers don’t review Application 2 submissions.

You must complete the Assessment evaluation with a yes or no decision for each of the assessment practices. Each no decision requires a written directive for the school. Please make sure your directives follow the communication strategy.

Once you complete the Assessment evaluation and click on the green Complete button, the decision will be published to the school. The submitter will receive an email notification and the school’s dashboard will update.

From this view you can also add consultation notes and the time spent in consultation by clicking on the Consultation notes button. If you forget to do this before you make your decision, you can go to your All schools tab and open the Assessment evaluation from the Application 1 decision. You will not be able to alter the published Application 1 decision, but the Consultation notes button can be accessed from there, until the closing date for recording consultation times. Consultation notes do not need to be detailed, but they need to be useful to the chief endorser for the assessment instrument to go to intervention. You must write something in order to be able to select the time spent in consultation in the Endorsement application.

Accessing assessor resources

On the hidden endorser webpage, there is a number of resources that may of use to you during the consultation process. Schools don’t have access to the assessor page or its information.

You may wish to direct schools to the resources in the Syllabus app, such as a sample assessment or subject reports, or to the QCE and QCIA policies and procedures handbook.

Resources to help you with consultation and Application 2

There are resources published to the hidden endorser webpage to help you with the consultation process and Application 2 reviews. It is important to familiarise yourself with the information as it will help you identify the scope of your role, and tips for viewing assessments while you are still in the consultation stage so that a school can still recall their assessment and make further changes if needed.

Your syllabus PEO is also available for subject guidance, and the Endorsement team in the Quality Assurance Unit for procedures, process and app questions.

Questions?

If you have any further questions please email them to endorsement@qcaa.qld.edu.au or give us a call on the number shown on the slide.

If you have subject-specific questions during Application 2, please direct them to the syllabus PEO.

My Details application

Thank you for your commitment to the endorsement process and quality assessment in Queensland.

Please make sure that your correct details are entered into the My details app.