What's an "expected level"?

Intellischool Analytics uses expectation levels to provide a high-level indicator that represents student attainment.

Expected levels enable Intellischool Analytics to display a simple indicator - whether a result is above, at, or below an expected level.

There are two distinct types of expected levels used within Intellischool Analytics:

1. School-configured expectations; and
2. Normalised expectations as per progressive scales such as the Victorian Curriculum.

School-configured expectations

School-configured expectations, as the name suggests, are set by your school's Intellischool Analytics administrator. These apply to data such as:

• School-based academic assessments; and
• Attendance levels.

➡️ Normalised expectations

Normalised expectations are defined by external parties, such as standardised testing providers. They are automatically applied to data by Intellischool Analytics and are not set by a school.

Typically these are expected achievement levels for a student's age, however where an age-expected level is not defined by a provider, Intellischool Analytics uses normalised references to calculate an expectation level as follows.

With curriculum frameworks such as the Australian Curriculum or the Victorian Curriculum, there are published progressive performance ranges associated with a students' cohort age that define the expectation of what they should be able to demonstrate. Built in to these frameworks is an expectation of maturation and growing complexity of assessment tasks and content. Intellischool Analytics uses the progressive scale ranges applicable to each stage of the curriculum framework and we indicate whether or not a student is operating at that expectation, above, or below it. 

➡️ NAPLAN

Leading up to 2023, NAPLAN published as part of its assessment reporting minimum expectations of achievement for each of the year levels 3, 5, 7 and 9. Intellischool Analytics reports whether or not a student has met that expectation, exceeded, or not yet met it.

➡️ ACER

In the battery of ACER tests, student performance is reported as a scaled score, a rank, and the descriptive scaled score band in which their scaled score sits. As part of their annual reporting, ACER publishes the mean result and where it sits within the scaled score band descriptors. Students achieving below the mean are reported within our analytics as being 'below average', students whose scaled score has them within the descriptive band that represents the mean are reported as being 'at average', and students that have exceeded are reported as 'above average'.