Students may be eligible for AARA when participation in assessment is adversely affected by disability, medical condition/s or other circumstances outside their control.
Students may also be eligible due to certain cultural obligations such as Sorry Business and Sad News, or personal circumstances.
These conditions or circumstances may fall into the following categories, requiring different application processes and timelines:
- long-term and chronic conditions
- short-term conditions and temporary injuries
- illness and misadventure.
For AARA, disability has the same definition as the DDA. The definition of disability used in the DDA is broad, including physical, intellectual, psychiatric, sensory, neurological and learning disabilities. It also includes physical disfigurement, the presence in the body of disease-causing organisms and disability that is imputed to the person.
For AARA applications the QCAA uses the same broad disability categories that are used for the NCCD:
- cognitive
- physical
- sensory
- social/emotional.
For more information about illness and misadventure see Section 6.5: Illness and misadventure.
6.2.1 Ineligibility
Students are not eligible for AARA on the following grounds:
- unfamiliarity with the English language
- teacher absence or other teacher-related difficulties
- matters that the student could have avoided, e.g. misreading an examination timetable, misreading examination instructions
- timetable clashes
- matters of the student’s or parent’s/carer’s own choosing, e.g. family holidays or sporting events
- matters that the school could have avoided, e.g. incorrect enrolment in a subject.
AARA cannot be used to compensate for learning that has not occurred, or to exempt a student from the learning or knowledge and skill requirements of a subject or course. Students are expected to complete the required learning as outlined in the relevant syllabus (see Section 8.2.1: Engaging in learning and assessment).
Schools manage other situations where students are not eligible for AARA, such as school-approved absences for internal assessment or student transfers. For information about:
- school-approved absences, see Section 8.2.7: Gathering evidence of student achievement
- transfer students, see Section 8.2.1: Engaging in learning and assessment
- flexible delivery options, including variable progression, see Section 4.2: Delivery approaches to curriculum.
