6. Reporting for students with disability and/or additional needs
Reporting to parents and carers – students with disability and/or additional needs
Schools are required to report on achievement and progress each semester for all students with disability and/or additional needs.
Teacher judgements
Parents and carers are entitled to accurate information about their child’s achievement against the achievement standards.
Specialist schools are not required to provide previous achievement levels on students’ semester reports. Specialist schools may also not include current achievement levels in a specific student’s semester report if:
- the parents/carers have asked for achievement levels to not be included in semester reports, and
- the student has not progressed against the Victorian Curriculum F–10 scoring range, including the Foundation levels, for 24 months.
When these conditions are met, parents and carers must be informed that:
- the school has formally recorded their request
- teacher judgements will continue to be recorded in the school’s internal systems and to the department via CASES21 each semester
- parents and carers are entitled to this information at any time.
5-point scale
Schools, in consultation with their community, may decide an age-expected 5-point scale is not appropriate for students with disability and/or additional needs. In these circumstances, the department recommends using the 5-point learning objectives met scale.
| Learning area | Achieved level | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| English: Speaking and Listening | Level A | Often |
| English: Reading and Viewing | Level A | Usually |
| English: Writing | Level A | Often |
Rating
Occasionally: Your child has met a few learning objectives this semester. They require consistent support.
Sometimes: Your child has met some learning objectives this semester. They require some support.
Often: This semester, your child has met most learning objectives in familiar tasks. They need some support in new situations.
Usually: Your child has met most learning objectives this semester. They have shown this in familiar and new tasks. They have done this mostly by themselves.
Consistently: Your child has met almost all learning objectives this semester. They did this on their own without support.
Progress
The department acknowledges that students can make progress in their learning when working within or towards a particular achievement level for a prolonged period.
Specialist schools are not required to provide a previous achievement level. When a previous level is not provided, the progress requirement must be met by including a progress comment.
The progress comment must include detail about the student’s progress over the reporting period, relative to the start of the reporting period, including what the student has achieved that they hadn’t previously.
This requirement is shown in the Option 3 (recommended for specialist) model report (PDF)(opens in a new window).
Schools can also choose to include ‘learning goals achieved,’ shown as a recommended feature in the model report. To support this, the department recommends setting curriculum-based learning goals that can be realistically achieved in 6 months.
Schools can engage parents and carers in a more detailed discussion of achievement and progress through Student Support Groups.
Individual Education Plans and student reports
Information from curriculum-based Individual Education Plan (IEP) goals from across the semester may be used, along with a range of learning evidence, to inform reports. Please note an IEP is a separate document which cannot replace semester student reports.
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