Portfolio reporting banned and not required by DET

By Jennifer Leete

Guided by the outcomes of the Eltis Review into the implementation of outcomes based assessment and reporting, Annual Conference has rejected additional workload in assessment and reporting.

This includes the preparation, setting and marking of individual outcomes-based work samples for the purpose of inclusion in portfolio based reporting to parents.

The Eltis Report, Time to Teach -- Time to Learn, includes recommendations in relation to portfolios which have the potential to lead to changes in their nature and use.

Concerns raised by the Federation regarding the workload associated with assessment and reporting led to an agreement by then Minister Watkins to appoint Professor Ken Eltis to conduct an evaluation of the implementation of Outcomes Based Assessment and Reporting. Professor Eltis' report was released in November 2003. It contains numerous recommendations aimed to clarify requirements for assessment and reporting and to make the workload for teachers more manageable and "to free up teacher time to allow more time to be spent in planning for teaching and devising of innovative tasks for students in all areas of the curriculum".

Implementation of the Eltis recommendations is currently being managed by the Department of Education and Training (DET) and the Board of Studies with the assistance of the Eltis Evaluation Implementation Reference Group, on which Federation is represented. The production of "Reporting Frameworks" arising from Recommendation 25 will have considerable ramifications for the issue of portfolios, including the frequency and form of portfolios. The Eltis Report emphasises in several places that portfolios are not mandatory and that they have considerable workload implications.

In evidence before the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC), DET officers confirmed that portfolio based reporting is not a DET requirement.

On November 18, 2003, before the IRC in the recent salaries case, then Student Assessment and School Accountability Directorate Director Robyn McKerihan said: "Schools have the ability to select appropriate strategies in an assessment and reporting policy. The thing that is mandatory as far as the Department is concerned is the fact that a school must have an assessment and reporting policy and it must meet and reflect the principles that have been set down. We have not mandated the use of portfolios, however, we have said that portfolios are a good practice." And on portfolios specifically: "I'm aware that portfolios are widely used in schools and the amount of work that needs to go into the portfolio varies from school to school. The benefit of a portfolio is that it collects evidence upon which a teacher can take a judgement. That portfolio needs to be organised and implemented in such a way it is a time efficient matter. In some respects there is work involved in collecting the portfolio. That work needs to be in direct relationship to the judgements that are being made as a result of assessment."

In reply to the following question: "The discretion allowed to teachers in this area is not such that they can simply keep on building portfolios in the old style, the Department would expect that if they are going to be done at all, they be done in accordance with the principles stated in the document?" Ms McKerihan said: "There is no mandatory expectation so there is the strategy. The Department has put guidance and support and advice as far as how you can best utilise the work that goes into portfolios. It does not mandate that if you are having a portfolio you must do the linking to outcomes."

It is unlikely that the Reporting Frameworks called for in Recommendation 25 of the Eltis report will be available before 2005. In the meantime, Federation's advice to schools on this issue is that now is not the time to be making major changes to their processes for reporting to parents, unless of course, it is to pull back from onerous and time-consuming work. The ban on portfolio based reporting remains in place and even if this ban is lifted at some stage in the future, the implementation of the Eltis Report will more than likely lead to further changes in this area.

Jennifer Leete is the Acting President.

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August 2004 contents