Luther College Whitepaper The ATAR is on the way out

If the ATAR is on the way out, what’s in?

Re-thinking Teaching and Learning at Luther College

If the ATAR is on the out, what’s in?

Re-thinking Teaching and Learning at Luther

The ATAR is becoming obsolete, or at best, optional

THE CHALLENGES FACING 15 TO 19-YEAR -OLDS

A good friend recently asked my ten year old daughter what she ‘wanted to be when she grew up’, and I nearly fell off my chair. Not only was I shocked by the nature of the question – what on earth does a ten-year-old know about her future pathway, in any complexity? But also, as a teacher, my first reaction was to consider what her VCE might look like first, as this will ultimately be the travelator into the life of post-school Future-Ruby. Either way, it was not a comfortable thing to consider. Really, there is a lot to be uncomfortable with in the world of the VCE at this point in time, as much discourse has been had in attempting to rectify this deficit in the 2019 statistics which indicated:

ONE IN FIVE

students fails to complete Year 12 nationwide. This figure varies substantially nationwide, with only one in two learners completing Year 12 in some communities.

NEARLY A THIRD

of secondary students are chronically absent from secondary school.

O’Connell, M. et al, (2019) Beyond ATAR: A Proposal for Change.

Supporting all young people to thrive

Australia is in a transition. We have moved beyond the era of universal primary education to near universal secondary education. An era of universal tertiary education is emerging, whereby young people will need to engage in post-school education and learn and relearn throughout their lives. Our education system must be re-configured to support this.

Whilst this paper is focused on 15-19-year-olds, we anticipate the proposals would flow through to benefit younger learners, and in doing so support engagement and transitions. Opportunities for improvement include:

Five short years ago, the statistics showed that almost a third of all secondary students fail to attend the required number of scheduled classes, with one in five not completing VCE nation-wide. Whilst this figure does vary rather drastically depending on things such as location, social demographic and family aspiration, this data is nonetheless troubling. What’s more, these indicators were set to discombobulate completely during our COVID years and now beyond, with the backlash of these inconsistent stretches in time in the physical classroom being felt in ripples still to this day. COVID lockdowns aside, as educators we must look at this data and ask ourselves: what are we doing wrong? And how can we improve the secondary school experience for our students each and every day?

We need to help young people develop human skillscapabilities including creativity and interpersonal skills - so that they are prepared for a lifetime of learning, adaptation and the future economy.

We need to optimise the talent of all our young people. Each young person needs to be supported to develop their unique skills and talents, and to pursue pathways in which they can personally excel.

We have a world class education system in many

• whilst most young people complete Year 12, around one in five students do not finish school. This figure varies substantially nationwide, with only one in two learners completing Year 12 in some communities. There is an opportunity, and responsibility, to ensure location is not a barrier to student success.ii

When the system presents to the learner as lacking relevance, or students approach their education with disinterest, this absence of direction can sometimes creep into those post school years, with ‘nearly twelve percent of (Australian)

• we can improve student engagement and attendance, particularly in secondary school where around a third of school secondary students are chronically absent.iii

• a significant number of young people need better options and support to engage in education and build their enterprise skills – we must ensure the

young people…not engaged in employment or education,’ (O’Connel, M., et. al. 2019). Put simply, this leads to the following startling truth, that:

Despite relatively high levels of post-school qualifications

ONE IN FOUR

young people at age 24 are still not fully engaged in education or employment.

O’Connell,

FOR OVER HALF

of young people the transition to full time work takes up to five years, with many young people working a variety of part time and casual jobs.

M. et al, (2019) Beyond ATAR: A Proposal for Change.

Young people who have developed and can explicitly demonstrate skills such as communication and problem solving, and who have significant workplace experience, make the transition to work quicker than others.vi

transition categories. Although the higher education category is likely to be inflated, as the cohort were disproportionately from higher socio-economic backgrounds, the following transition segments are likely to broadly apply to young people:

The secondary school sector cannot ignore these statistics, because the research typically shows that students’ engagement with their learning follows a downward trajectory the longer that they are part of the system. By nature, primary school students are keen to learn and are interested in trying new things. As the years progress, however, and the trials and pressures of senior school and then VCE make the daily reality of school sometimes rigid, school attendance tends to decline (ACARA, 2023). Whilst some of this can be attributed to students following early postschool pathways such as a vocation, there is something else broiling under the surface here. Many educators believe this decline can be attributed to the oppressive structure of the VCE and the ATAR ranking, as students feel overwhelmed by the thought of this One Final Number which is set to define their life and their outcomes. They feel the pressure of this expectation, which weighs heavily upon their 17 and 18 year old shoulders, and this discontent sometimes continues into university, as shown by increasing drop-out rates (Joseph, R. 2023). Whilst this can be attributed to the course not matching the students’ expectations, or learners struggling with the self-directed nature of University teaching, it is now time to question the efficacy of the ATAR system as a means for sorting school leavers.

Not all young people have opportunities to develop these skills or have them recognised if they do. Overall, young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, young people with disabilities, rural and remote young people and young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders fare worse than their peers in the transition from formal education to employment.vii These factors can intersect and compound.

For over half of young people, the transition to full time work takes up to five years,viii with many young people working a variety of part time and casual jobs. This can delay young people in developing confidence and optimism about their future, making it more difficult for them to forge foundations for working careers, and family and community life.

• higher education to work – around 60 percent of young people made a smooth transition from school to higher education and work

• early entry to work – nearly a quarter of young people, mainly males, undertook a small amount of post-school training and enter work early through pathways including apprenticeships and traineeships

• mix of higher education and VET – around 8 percent of young people, mainly females, had complex pathways and switch between higher education and vocational education and training

Tertiary institutions are acknowledging the deficit and in fact, have been working diligently for many years at providing alternatives to this perhaps obsolete framework for ordering and ranking students nationwide. Some Universities have the capacity to offer early entry to high performing Year 11 students in the first few months of their Year 12 study, which does fundamentally take the pressure off those individuals, but the pitfalls in this system are two-fold. Firstly, these offers rely on individual students researching their courses early and being made aware that they have the capacity to enrol pre Year 12, which is something that many will not investigate during Year 11. And secondly, this also relies on the student staying focused on this select pathway and not changing their preferences over the course of their Year 12 study, which is sometimes a hard track to follow. To mitigate these complexities, Universities are developing alternatives, such as the ‘Next Gen’ assessments addressed in this paper, and the school system now must catch up with their ideology.

The idea that there is an orderly, step by step progression from school to higher levels of learning and the workforce is a myth. For some young people the pathway is laid out and simply realised. New analysis from Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) separated young people into five

• mixed and repeatedly disengaged – around 5 percent of young people transitioned frequently and disengaged from the labour market

• mainly working part time – around 4 percent of young people were likely to leave school early, less likely to engage in post-school education and more engaged in part time work.ix

‘Next Gen’ outcomes the potential alternative to ATAR

Sandra Milligan, of the Melbourne University’s Faculty of Education, has coined this metamorphosis as being the ‘decay in the ATAR’, and as a member of a tertiary facility, she and her team have been researching ways in which to address this ‘problem of practice’, (Milligan, S., 2023). Interestingly, Milligan does not suggest that we work on ways to improve our student attitude to ATAR, but she and her colleagues have been building capacity around producing alternatives. This ATAR measure of success will, in a few short months or years, have the potential to be considered at best optional, or alternatively, be rendered completely obsolete as a processing measure to be used as students transition into their post-school pathways.

Much conversation is being had in educational and research facilities, with Luther College’s Acting Director of Teaching and Learning, Simone Boland acknowledging that the ATAR is merely, ‘a blunt measure of success and accomplishment’. Boland firmly asserts that, ‘at Luther, we see our students as individuals and rounded human beings, (they are) seen holistically – a number does not do that’. To counteract this deficit, Boland and her colleagues are working to consider substitutions which have been supported by the Melbourne Assessment Community and address ways in which to ‘profile’ students based on a broad range of strengths, (Milligan, S., 2024). These competencies are workplace focused and are designed to match student interests and skill sets with potential courses, rather than defining these applications simply by using the single ATAR number. Luther College’s Simone Boland believes that this change would be nothing short of revolutionary for young people Australia wide, and that this transformation would sit well with ‘our purpose as a school and our core values’ here at Luther, as ‘we want to develop our young people with all their special gifts, to go out into the world prepared for life with all its exciting possibilities and complexities. This means equipping them with the skills, competencies and experiences that will fuel resilience and problem-solving - an ability to take on life’s challenges - the social networks that can support and empower them and the confidence and belief that when they put their mind to it, anything is possible. None of this is found in a number’, (Boland, S., 2024). In short, this new approach to measuring student success is attempting to ensure that young people must:

1

2

3 Know how to learn and have their personal attributes showcased Have their social and interpersonal skills developed Be purposeful and meaningful in their chosen direction

4 Celebrate thinking as a means for guiding action

Rhiannon Ward, adapted from Melbourne Assessment Community, 2024

When students know how they learn and are able to recognise their personal strengths, this autonomy can have profound influence over their successes both inside and outside of the classroom. The ATAR, however, is often criticised as forcing students to forego their interests and their natural strengths in the face of needing to boost their individual study scores. However, if we agree that a single ranking cannot be responsible for determining who will or will not make a good doctor, or teacher, or nurse, what is the better gauge?

The answer lies in alternative measures of success, and here we are referring to them as ‘Next Gen’ outcomes to supersede the almost outdated ATAR. This innovative approach to measuring student achievement will consider:

Competence, not content mastery

Workforce focused, matching the people with the job

Next Gen outcomes will...

Authentic judgements as made by teachers known to the student

Assessment that is embedded in the learning, not separate

Rhiannon Ward, adapted from Melbourne Assessment Community, 2024

When students are given the opportunity to be considered based on their virtues and interests, rather than simply the number that defines their success, we are opening up a broad range of human potential for them. Students have oft complained that school feels like a curious distinction from the rest of their lives and their interests, that it stifles who ‘they really are and what they need to do to be part of the learning community of the school’ (O’Connell, M., 2019). Their interests and natural talents are not necessarily catered for in the neat boxes offered by secondary schools, and as such they feel a disconnect between the two. This misalignment can potentially be attributed to student disengagement, and those startling statistics that indicate one in five students enrolled in secondary school do not in fact finish. The ‘one size fits all’ approach to school is firmly being redeveloped, and one of the most powerful refinements here may be for marking out student agency, empowering young people to take firm hold of the drivers’ seat in their own journey, in order to provide them a strong way forward.

Student Agency is the way of the future

The cornerstone of this ‘Next Gen’ evolution is indeed learner advocacy, or the capacity for students to take charge of their own pathway earlier and with greater clarity. Advocacy by nature is an integral part of knowing who we are and how we function in our world; being able to understand our strengths and promote ourselves in order to showcase these strengths and interests is crucial to our human belonging. Surely success should be measured with a more holistic approach than the single ATAR figure, to include the opportunity to uncover personal interests and attributes to the learning experience? Furthermore, these attributes or capabilities have the potential to form part of a students’ assessment profile, and these ‘learner profiles’, or ‘capability reports’, have the capacity to provide a more balanced and targeted review of a students’ skill set and natural abilities profile than the basic ATAR figure does.

These reports will look very similar to other nationally benchmarked assessments such as NAPLAN, in that visually they provide learners with a pin wheel of colours, connected to attributes that showcase the individual’s particular interests, strengths and capabilities. An example can be seen below, with the strongest colours indicating the strongest natural capabilities of that learner:

A student profile might include the traditional grades for each subject plus information about the extent to which the student has demonstrated that they can transfer their subject-specific knowledge and skills. Using a similar “traffic light” system, proficiency in literacy, numeracy and ICT/ cyber are indicated on the profile and again an on-balance judgement of the extent to which the student can transfer these skills is included. Evidence of a student’s capabilities are captured on the profile in a snapshot represented by the size of each circle and the underlying components of each available in detail (entrepreneurial thinking in this example). Source: SACE Board of South Australia.

MY STORY MY LEARNING BY DOMAIN

Literacy

Numeracy

Scientific reasoning

Artistic expression

Physical education

Evaluation, critical thinking and problem solving

Teamwork

Local and global competence

Motivation and metacognition

Social and emotional

Creativity and enrepreneurship

Ethics

The premise behind the capabilities report is that all teaching staff who mentor a student have been required to complete a questionnaire series, that is then used to generate this visual interpretation. These teachers hold a personal relationship to individual students, and hence the thinking is that they are better equipped to form a judgement about that person than would a subjective test or measure of their aptitude. Really, these ‘Next Gen’ assessments are reverting to a very human way to quantify success; the human relationship between student and teacher is important, and it is valued, and will certainly be accredited for improved student outcomes.

Another factor here is that on a broad level, students as whole people live and breathe the life of a school for the years that they spend inside its’ walls. They embody the philosophy of the school community, they are part of programs that develop their wellbeing, or their cross-age relationships, or their external connections, and as such, school leadership is also well placed to comment upon a students’ success. There is capacity, in this ‘Next Gen’ world, for school Principals or other members of the Executive to contribute their insight into a students’ skill set, which works to boost the capability of that learner’s profile within their community. These profiles are also agile, in that they have the potential to offer students micro-credentials by ‘badging’ them with a skill set, to show future employers or tertiary institutions the myriad talents the leaner has accomplished. These may be showcased via an e-porfolio, which can be built over time and grow in complexity and diversity. This varied suite will hopefully open pathways and provide learners with the chance to match their interests with their post school journeys and appropriate courses of study. Ultimately, the goal is to give focus to a student’s skill set and match this to a professional profile, rather than the other way around.

In summary:

The key components of this ATAR revolution are as follows:

As the ATAR transitions to obsolescence, much consideration has been given to its’ next iteration. The Melbourne Assessment Community believes that the ‘decay in the ATAR’, (Milligan, 2024), is due in part to the lack of relevance. A final number does not indicate how well a student is suited to a particular profession or vocation, and already some tertiary institutions offer early entry places to high performing Year 11 students during their first few months of Year 12.

The ‘Next Gen’ iteration of assessment is at its’ advent, and will allow students greater autonomy over their learning experience and direction. This reinvented way of measuring students will allow competencies to be showcased with the view that these attributes are a better indicator of a student’s likelihood of success with a particular tertiary pathway. These ‘capability reports’ will be completed by all teachers who mentor an individual student, and school leaders also have the potential for input, in order to provide a more complete picture of each individual student.

And finally, learner agency is the way of the future, as students will have their credentials aligned with their interest, and in turn impact the course that they may take on board for their future. Fundamentally, this new way of measuring success is a student centred, human approach to the experience of teaching and learning, and it is an exciting pathway for us to follow.

And so, it is with some relief that I can pause, breathe out and consider that the VCE world of the future is set to be very different to the VCE world of today. My ten-year-old Future-Ruby will likely have her strengths mapped out as capabilities rather than measured as numerical figures. In turn, this will likely mean that her teachers and mentors at secondary school will have the capacity to place their judgements about her strengths and challenges, and have these qualities marked as visual representations of her success. And ultimately, her personal wishes and interests will powerfully be taken on board and produce the anchor point for her post-school direction. Her profile will be measured as skills rather than numbers, her credentials be measured in the micro rather than the macro, and her post school studies will ultimately be tailored to her interests, strengths and capabilities, rather than her one and final ATAR number. What a positive and remarkable change for us to witness, steer and own as secondary school educators in the year 2024.

References

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, (2023), Student Attendance, retrieved from: Student attendance (acara.edu.au)

Australian Government, Productivity Commission, (2019). Report on Government Services 2019. Retrieved from www.pc.gov.au

Boland, Simone., (2024) Acting Director of Teaching and Learning, Luther College.

Joseph, R. (2023) ATAR’s rising relevance: Admission standards and completion rates. Centre for Independent Studies, Analysis Paper 44.

Lamb, S, Jackson, J, Walstab, A & Huo, S. (2015). Educational opportunity in Australia 2015: Who succeeds and who misses out? Centre for International Research on Education Systems, Victoria University, for the Mitchell Institute. Melbourne: Mitchell Institute.

Milligan, S., (2023), Executive Director of Melbourne Assessment at the Factory of Education, University of Melbourne.

Milligan, S, Luo, R., Kamei, T., Rice, S and Khean, T, (2020), Recognition of learning success for all. Learning Creates Australia, the Foundation for Young Australians.

O’Connell, M., Milligan, S., and Bentley, T., (2019). Beyond ATAR: A Proposal for Change. Australian Learning Lecture, Koshland Innovation Fund.

Luther College

Plymouth Road

Croydon Hills Vic 3136

Phone: (03) 9724 2000

www.luther.vic.edu.au