In a small classroom on Dharug and Gundungurra Country in the lower Blue Mountains, a Year 3 student is recording himself read aloud — not to his teacher, but to his iPad.

For this particular student, reading in front of a person had always been a challenge, but he was comfortable reading to a computer.

For the staff at Warrimoo Public School, that small shift unlocked something significant: for the first time, they had reading fluency data for a student they'd previously been unable to assess.

It's a moment that captures what good assessment is really about: finding ways to genuinely understand where every child is in their learning.

According to the NSW Department of Education's “What Works Best 2025” evidence guide, its primary role is to establish where individual students are in their learning so that teaching can be adjusted, and progress monitored over time.

That's a long way from the image many people have of assessment as a formal test at the end of a unit.

In practice, assessment happens constantly: in the questions a teacher asks during a lesson, in the observations they make while students work, and in the structured tasks they design to check understanding before, during and after a unit of learning.

The evidence is clear that when teachers use a wide range of assessment strategies the gains for students can be substantial. Assessment is one of the most powerful tools a teacher has.

Research shows formative assessment, which involves the ongoing gathering of information to guide teaching, leads to significant learning gains, with the biggest benefits often flowing to students who are finding learning most difficult.

At Warrimoo Public School, the journey toward stronger assessment practice started with some simple questions: what actually needs to be assessed, when, and why?

The school developed a whole-school assessment data management plan to map out which outcomes are being assessed across the year and how.

Relieving Principal Alena Anderson said that while it sounds straightforward, the impact has been significant.

"Every staff member knows where each of our students are sitting. Every staff member knows if a student requires interventions, whether it's in English, the social-emotional learning program or the high potential and gifted education program,” she said.

“And that enhances the efforts to improve all student learning."

Rather than assessment being an add-on at the end of a unit, it became part of the fabric of how the school plans and teaches.

Every three weeks, stage meetings are dedicated to mapping assessment results to the scope and sequence of lessons being taught. Teachers and school leaders ask three consistent questions: should we revisit this learning? Does the way we've taught it need to be revised? Or do we need to reteach it entirely?

This structured approach and professional collaboration have helped build a shared language around data and a culture where teachers feel confident acting on what assessments are telling them, resulting in stronger assessment practice.

Research into whole-school professional development programs focused on formative assessment has found significant learning progress when teachers work together consistently to build and apply their assessment skills.

Strong assessment practice doesn't have to mean more work. In fact, one of Warrimoo Public School's goals has been to find tools that give teachers the data they need without adding unnecessary load.

One of those tools is an 'assessment bullseye' — a simple visual template where teachers plot student names to show whether they have consolidated, demonstrated, partially demonstrated or not yet demonstrated a learning outcome.

Classroom teacher Ashleigh Berrell uses it on her iPad throughout the day, updating it in real time.

"Using the bullseye has just made it very easy to use that data as you go — to work out who needs extending and work out who needs support," she said.

"You can very easily see the trends and where the students are making progress in real time. You don't have to sit back and enter any extra data. You've got a record every day that takes very little extra time in the classroom, and you've just got that wealth of data."

Assessment also has an important role to play in identifying and supporting students at the other end of the learning spectrum, as the “What Works Best 2025” evidence guide notes that assessment should be designed to provide useful information about all students.

Warrimoo Public School staff not only use assessment data to identify students who need additional learning support, but also to recognise those whose potential has not yet been fully developed.

That information then feeds into decisions about High Potential and Gifted Education programming, grouping and enrichment.

The evidence guide also highlights the power of explicit success criteria, clearly communicating to students what success looks like rather than leaving them to guess.

Research across multiple studies has found that well-explained rubrics lead to improved academic performance.

Importantly, clear success criteria help level the playing field for students whose backgrounds might otherwise leave them disadvantaged in navigating unstated expectations.

The ability of teachers to assess student work reliably and comparably has been an area of deliberate focus at Warrimoo Public School, with staff reporting that this approach is building their capacity as teachers and assessors.

To address the problem of Warrimoo Public School’s small size, staff organised professional learning with NESA on the A to E grade scale and then opened it up to other primary schools in the lower Blue Mountains area.

The schools are now working together to build a shared bank of graded work samples from Kindergarten to Year 6 to help teachers across the region assess consistently and accurately, extending the benefits found at Warrimoo Public to neighbouring public schools in the network.