Essential Secondary Science Assessment (ESSA)

ESSAonline 2011 will be conducted on Tuesday 22 November 2011.

Download information about:

• ESSA 2011 Administrative manual (PDF 2.5mB)
• ESSA 2011 proforma letter to parents (PDF 110kB)
• ESSA 2011 special provisions consent forms (PDF 17kB)
• ESSA 2011 request for Braille materials (PDF 16kB)
• ESSAonline 2011 technology profile (PDF 11kB)
• ESSA 2010 OPC pilot teacher survey report (PDF 111kB)
• Development of online practical component (OPC) (PDF 245kB) 

The 2011 Readiness will be available for students from Monday 10 October to Friday 4 November.

The 2011 Readiness test is a practice set designed familiarise students with online navigation of the test and the types of tasks in ESSAonline. This will also ensure that students can log on successfully and enable schools to check hardware, software and internet connections before ESSAonline.

The Readiness test may be accessed by school test administrators from Tuesday 20 September. Meanwhile, an animated non-interactive preview of the Readiness test can be accessed here. You will need Flash 10.0.

An online version of the information for the school test administrators can be access below:

1. Introduction and logon

2. Preview the student test

3. Open the administration interface

4. School activity report

5. List of students eligible for testing

• prior to testing
• during testing

6. Create a student account 

7. Create a user password report

8. Complete open tests

9. Manage teacher accounts 

The ESSA 2010 written test was held on Tuesday 23 November 2010 for approximately 60000 Year 8 students in all governments and a range of non-government schools. Reports will be distributed by schools from March 2011.

Additionally, an online practical component (OPC) pilot test was held on 21 October 2010 in registered schools. Approximately 32000 students in 349 government and non-government schools completed this interactive multimedia simulation of an experiment.

These short response items are related to articles in the ESSA 2005 pilot stimulus magazine. Groups of sample items can be downloaded for articles called:

• sun, earth and moon (PDF 282kB)
• onion (PDF 222kB).

Students take approximately five to eight minutes to compose a response to each extended response task. A sample task from the ESSA 2005 pilot called heating ice (PDF 42kB) can be downloaded.

The ESSA framework (PDF 51kB) is used to design and select items for the test, and as the basis for reporting student achievement in the test. It was developed using the NSW Board of Studies Science Years 7-10 Syllabus, 2003, the theory of learning called SOLO and classroom practice.