This year, the Ministry of Education expects schools to include five common components in reporting to parents and whānau. These are:
- Progress Descriptors for reading, writing and maths
- a visual representation of the student’s progress over time
- a narrative about how the progress descriptors were selected
- assessment results from specific assessment tools, and
- an attendance record.
With the release of interim mapping between progress descriptors and both PAT Pāngarau and PAT Pānui (with PAT Tuhituhi to come), schools can now use PATs to deliver the assessment component.
View this guidance as a downloadable PDF here.
How PAT results can be used as the assessment component
When a school chooses to use PAT test results as the assessment component in their reporting, NZCER recommends they use the whānau report that is available on the NZCER Assist website.
The whānau report has been designed specifically for parents and whānau. It shows a visual representation of the student’s progress over time on a PAT assessment (including the latest result) and how this compares with typical patterns of progress nationally.
The whānau report can be accompanied by a simple one-page explainer about PAT assessments developed for parents and whānau. If a school decides to include PAT results directly within reports, we recommend providing the following information.
- The name of the assessment (eg: PAT Pāngarau | Mathematics) and a short summary of what it assesses.
- The term in which the assessment was administered.
- The scale score (with the plus or minus range)
- The relevant national average (see tables below).
- The best-fit interim progress descriptor indicated by the test.
Example information
Assessment result for PAT: Pangārau | Mathematics
- Description: PAT Pāngarau | Mathematics is a standardised assessment of students’ mathematical knowledge and skills.
- Term administered: Term 1
- Student’s score: 61±3
- Year 6 national average for Term 1: 52.1
- Indicative Progress Descriptor (based on the test): Proficient
3 things to keep in mind with PATs and progress descriptors
While we are pleased to provide the interim mapping between PATs and progress descriptors, there are a few important points to keep in mind.
- These mapping tables are interim. As information from the SMART Tool is released, and NZCER gathers more information from schools using PATs, we will update the mapping to ensurecoherence between the two rools.
- Mapping is based on e-asTTle. NZCER has used the interim mapping tables provided by the Ministry for e-asTTle to determine which score bands on PATs best align with the progress descriptors.
- Progress descriptors describe end of year expectations. NZCER’s interim mapping tables indicate which score bands on a PAT test best align with each progress descriptor. These descriptors describe expectations for the end of the year. Students’ PAT scores increase over the course of the year, and more students are expected to achieve at higher descriptor levels by the end of the year than at the start.
Download the below image as a PDF here.