Events
What's happening in the NZAI world?
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NZAI Assessment Conference 2025 – Save the Date!!
We’re underway with the planning for our annual assessment conference for 2025 and can let you know some details.
Title: Using assessment for better, smarter, faster learning.
Dates: Monday April 14 and Tuesday April 15
Venue: Ormiston Junior College
This year our conference will be kanohi ki te kanohi for both days at OJC. We’re looking forward to the opportunity to meet you all over the two days.
Exciting keynote speakers will be announced very soon. Watch this space!
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We are celebrating the success of
NZAI Assessment Conference 2024
Taking Assessment from Strength to Strength – in Principle, Practice and Proof
During the first week of the April school holidays, educators from across Aotearoa met together at Ormiston Junior College in Auckland to talk all things assessment. On the next day, we met online, giving the opportunity for more people to join the conversation. We comprised teachers, school leaders, PLD facilitators, education agency personnel, university academics – all education professionals interested in discussing how good assessment practice is a vital component of learning, teaching and system improvement.
Keynote speakers were:
Hon. Erica Stanford – Minister of Education | Lisa Rodgers – Director General at Department of Education, Western Australia | Professor Jenny Poskitt – Massey University and NZAI President | Utufa’asisili Rosemary Mose – Deputy Chief Executive Pasifika NZQA |
The Minister detailed her government’s view of how to improve and the Director General of Western Australia explained how they have achieved significant improvements across the state in recent years. The Deputy Chief Executive of NZQA highlighted the approaches needed to boost achievement for the traditionally underserved in our education system and Professor Poskitt emphasised the principles that underpin the use of assessment to improve learning.
Teachers and leaders ran workshops demonstrating their school’s path to demonstrable learner improvement. Some education professionals talked the intricacies of data analysis while others explained culturally responsive assessment practice. We learned about new advances in assessment tools and why school culture, relationship building and learner agency are important components of effective assessment practice.
NZAI is of the view that NZ is unlikely to see gains nationally in student learning outcomes until we can all agree on how assessment should be used at each level of the system to support improvement. The conference was focussed on beginning the conversation to achieve that.
Thank you:
to our keynote speakers and workshop presenters, who made their knowledge and experience available to others so that we can add to the our growing body of understanding of what makes good assessment practice.
to our sponsor, Evaluation Associates | Te Huinga Kākākura Mātauranga, who contributed in many ways to making the conference a success, including up to $500 off conference expenses to a lucky winner.
to Ormiston Junior College for generously allowing us to use the school as a wonderful venue, to NZCER for their ongoing support for NZAI and to The Conference Company for running our conference with their usual friendly and helpful eficiency.
and to all those who were interested to attend our conference, either in person or online, attentive to the issues raised by our speakers and workshop presenters. Remember that all online presentations will be available on the TCC platform for three months. We look forward to seeing you again next year, to welcoming others from the education community and in the meantime to keeping you up to date with assessment news.
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NZAI Assessment Conference 2023 – Online presentations are on our website.
Our annual National Assessment Conference was in April, a kanohi ki te kanohi conference at Ormiston Junior College in Auckland and the second day online.
The theme of the conference was: How do we know they are learning?
The keynotes and workshops were outstanding. We were privileged to have the participation of a wide range of presenters who offered their experience and wisdom on assessment from a range of different perspectives. We thank all speakers sincerely for their time and generous willingness to support our conference
You can find all online presentations here on our website. Dive in, they’re worth your time!
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*** NZAI National Conference 2021 – Presentations are now on our website ***
Our virtual conference at the beginning of October was a great success, despite our initial nervousness about using an online platform for the first time.
Assessment to Improve Learning: Principles, Practices and Proof across the System
We’re extremely grateful to our first class line-up of keynote speakers and workshop presenters who all offered opportunities to broaden and deepen our collective knowledge and understanding of assessment at all tiers of the education system. They have now given us permission to publish their presentations on our website.
You can find the presentations here.
We encourage you to go back to our publication, Assessment to Improve Learning: Principles, practices and proof, distributed to all schools at the end of Term 1 2021. You’ll be able to make connections with the themes of the conference, and see how the publication can assist you to review the assessment practices in your education setting.