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 Software Engineering
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 comprehensive understanding of the influence of technologies on the development of software engineering solutions
demonstrates extensive knowledge and understanding of the social, ethical and legal implications of the application of software engineering solutions on the individual, society and the environment
applies sophisticated technical skills in the design and implementation of programming solutions
collects, uses, manages and stores complex data effectively, safely and securely
applies comprehensive skills in developing, managing and documenting software engineering projects
communicates logically and effectively using a range of terms, conventions and methods.
Band 5
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates broad understanding of the influence of technologies on the development of software engineering solutions
demonstrates thorough knowledge and understanding of the social, ethical and legal implications of the application of software engineering solutions on the individual, society and the environment
applies high-level technical skills in the design and implementation of programming solutions
collects, uses, manages and stores data effectively, safely and securely
demonstrates high-level skills in developing, managing and documenting software engineering projects
communicates logically, using appropriate terms, conventions and methods.
Band 4
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates sound understanding of the influence of technologies on the development of software engineering solutions
demonstrates sound knowledge and understanding of the social, ethical and legal implications of the application of software engineering solutions
applies sound technical skills in the design and implementation of programming solutions
collects, uses, manages and stores data safely and securely
demonstrates sound skills in developing, managing and documenting software engineering projects
communicates using relevant terms, conventions and methods.
Band 3
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates basic understanding of the influence of technologies on the development of software engineering solutions
demonstrates basic knowledge and understanding of the social and/or ethical and/or legal implications of the application of software engineering solutions
displays basic skills in programming
uses data safely and securely
displays basic skills in developing software engineering projects
communicates using basic terms and conventions and/or methods.
Band 2
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates limited understanding of the use of technologies
displays limited skills in programming
displays limited skills in developing software engineering projects
communicates with limited use of terms.
Band 1
Performance reported as Band 1 indicates that the minimum standard expected was not demonstrated.