Monday, 13 Feb 2023
Here are a few tips and resources to prepare your school to run PAT assessments smoothly and to get the most out of your data.
Update your student details for new school year
Prepare your account now to ensure student details are correct in time for testing. To make updating your data a little easier, watch this 5-minute guide to rolling over current students.
You can find more useful resources in the Help section of your account and don’t hesitate to reach out to the OARS Support team if you have any queries.
Ensure your staff have the correct access to the school account
To keep your students’ data secure and accurate at your school, we recommend reviewing the staff who have access to the account and their permissions, as well as removing staff who no longer require access.
School staff can be assigned one of three roles in your account.
Client Administrators have the rights to:
- view, create, edit and delete staff logins
- complete purchases in the Store
- edit the school’s account details (contact, enrolments, school hours etc.)
- view, add and edit student information
- assign tests to students
- generate reports.
Candidate Managers have the rights to:
- view, add and edit student information
- assign tests to students.
Report Generators have the rights to:
- view student information
- generate reports.
Bookmark key PAT training dates
To support you and your colleagues to in their use of PAT, our School Engagement team runs free 30-to-60-minute webinars throughout the year exploring different aspects of the PAT suite.
This table lists key PAT webinars that you may want to bookmark in your calendar. You can also browse the full brochure of training activities. All webinars are recorded and made available online after each session.
| Term | Date | Webinar |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 16 February | Grouping and identifying students using PAT data |
| 23 February | Setting up your account for 2023 | |
| 2 | 18 May | Unpacking ACER’s PAT Critical Reasoning assessment |
| 8 June | Unpacking ACER’s PAT Spelling Skills assessment | |
| 3 | 17 August | Talking about growth |
| 14 September | Using ACER’s PAT Norms for comparisons | |
| 4 | 17 October | A look at PAT reports (Spelling, Science, Grammar & Punctuation, STEM, Vocabulary, etc.) |
| 18 October | A look at PAT linear reports (Maths, Reading) | |
| 19 October | A look at PAT Adaptive reports (Maths, Reading) | |
| 16 November | Q&A with ACER – PAT reports and data |
The School Engagement team also hold workshops in-person around Australia, as well as virtually. View the 2023 workshop calendar.
Review the evidence
Teachers rely on many kinds of evidence to support decisions about what a student needs next. Assessment results form part of that evidence and can provide valuable insights into students’ strengths, weaknesses and/or gaps. Revisit last year's PAT data to inform your professional judgement about the appropriate next steps for each student in your class.
If your school is currently using the PAT Adaptive assessments, there is guidance on reviewing results through the PAT Data Explorer.
And if your school is currently using PAT ‘linear’ assessments (i.e. not adaptive), there is also guidance on your reports.
Looking for more?
Sign up to PAT News to stay up-to-date on new releases and more; simply enter your details into the green box on our PAT Insights page.
Not yet using PAT to measure progress and improve learning in your school? Contact the PAT Team for an obligation-free chat or a free trial.