Assessment
Course standards
Course standards are comprised of syllabus standards and performance standards. Syllabus outcomes and content form the syllabus standards that describe what students are expected to know, understand and do. Performance standards, including the Common Grade Scale for Preliminary courses, HSC Performance Band Descriptions and Achievement Level Descriptions (for HSC courses with grades only) describe how well students have achieved in relation to syllabus standards. Performance standards are used to report student achievement on NESA credentials.
Common Grade Scale for Preliminary courses
The Loading provides generic, holistic descriptions for performance at each of the 5 grade levels. It is used to report student achievement in Year 11 courses in all NSW schools.
Performance Band Descriptions for Legal Studies
HSC performance band descriptions summarise the knowledge, understanding and skills typically demonstrated by students at each band level in a particular course. NESA uses these holistic descriptions to report a student's overall level of achievement in an HSC course.
Band 6
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates extensive knowledge and understanding of the role, formation and reform of law
demonstrates extensive knowledge and understanding of the extent to which the legal system resolves conflict to achieve justice for individuals, groups and society
makes well-informed judgements about the effectiveness of the Australian and international legal systems in addressing issues
analyses and synthesises legal information from a range of relevant sources to support arguments
communicates informed and sustained arguments using legal concepts and terminology, which integrate differing perspectives of individuals, groups and society.
Band 5
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates thorough knowledge and understanding of the role, formation and reform of law
demonstrates thorough knowledge and understanding of the extent to which the legal system resolves conflict to achieve justice for individuals, groups and society
makes informed judgements about the effectiveness of the Australian and international legal systems in addressing issues
analyses legal information from a range of relevant sources to support arguments
communicates sound arguments using legal concepts and terminology, which include differing perspectives of individuals, groups and society.
Band 4
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates sound knowledge and understanding of the role, formation and reform of law
demonstrates sound knowledge and understanding of the extent to which the legal system resolves conflict to achieve justice for individuals, groups and society
makes sound judgements about the effectiveness of the Australian and international legal systems in addressing issues
uses legal information from a range of relevant sources to support arguments
communicates arguments using legal concepts and terminology, which include perspectives of individuals, and/or groups and/or society.
Band 3
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates basic knowledge of the role, formation or reform of law
demonstrates basic knowledge of how the law resolves conflict or achieves justice
makes basic judgements about the Australian and/or international legal system(s) in addressing issues
uses legal information from sources
communicates information using legal concepts and terminology.
Band 2
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates limited knowledge of the role, formation or reform of law
demonstrates limited knowledge of how the law resolves conflict or achieves justice
recognises some issues in Australian and/or international legal system(s)
communicates limited information using some legal terminology.
Band 1
Performance reported as Band 1 indicates that the minimum standard expected was not demonstrated.