1. Year 12
A Summary of OP Calculations, QCS, QCCA, QCE, OP & QTAC and all other acronyms!

2. End of Year 12 Senior Statement Q’ld Certificate of Education (QCE)
Tertiary Entrance Statement
VET accreditation
School Reference (from Emmaus)

3. Senior Statement
Issued by the Queensland Studies Authority (“Authority”).
All students who complete Year 12 receive this certificate.

4. Senior Statement
Authority Subjects and Authority Registered Subjects -Number of semesters studied -Level of Achievement (VHA, HA,..)
Voc Ed modules
QCS result (A-E)
(Recorded subjects (AMEB, etc))

5. Queensland Certificate of Education (QCE)
Certificate that is awarded to students who achieve 20 credit points – Sound achievement or above in at least three subjects studied through year 11 and 12
Meet literacy and numeracy requirements

6. Tertiary Entrance Statement
Overall Position
1 –
Field Positions (FP)
1 – 10
Up to 5 FPs
Field A
Field B
Field C
Field D
Field E

7. Field Positions A : Extended written expression
B : Short written communication
C : Basic numeracy
D : Solving complex problems
E : Substantial practical performance (physical, creative, expressive)

8. What is an OP? OP stands for overall position
A number taken from a rank order of eligible Yr 12 students in Queensland (based on their achievement in Authority subjects)
Tertiary institutions use OP in selecting students
The most favourable OP is 1 and the least favourable is 25

9. To get an OP
Study at least 20 semester units of Authority subjects (usually 5 subjects for 4 semesters)
At least 3 subjects for all 4 semesters
Do the QCS test

10. QCS Test 2 days (Tue, 4 Sept, Wed 5 Sept)
All Queensland OP eligible students
4 papers: Writing Task (WT) Multi Choice Questions 1 (MCQ1) Short Response Items (SRI) Multi Choice Questions II (MCQII)
7 hours of testing over 2 days

11. Format of QCS Test Tuesday am WT (2 hrs) pm MCQ I (90 mins) Wednesday
am SRI (2 hrs)
pm MCQ II ( mins)

12. Why have the QCS Test? The purpose of the QCS Test is:
(1) To compare subject group with subject group within the school
(2) To compare school group with school group across state

13. What QCS Test measures
Measure of the skills acquired in 12 years of schooling regardless of subjects studied
Common Curriculum Elements (CCE)

14. Why preparation? Test wise!
Familiarity with phrases: Key terms, CCE, stem & cue, star value.
How to plan your time
Methods of approach
Comfortable!

15. How is OP for an individual calculated?
Individual contribution
AND
Group contribution
Pdf file: calopfps.pdf

16. Individual contribution Subject Achievement Indicators (SAI)
What is an SAI: shows one student’s achievement in relation to the achievement of other students in that subject in that school
SAI’s range from 400 (highest performing student) to 200 (lowest performing student)
This range of numbers is used to compare the achievement of students in the subject group

17. Subject Achievement Indicators (SAI)
Each student will have an SAI for each Authority subject
The school’s ranking of students for each subject -
(1) in order
(2) with correct relative gaps
SAI’s are published and students are encouraged to check these

24. Group contribution The purpose of the QCS Test is to:
(1) To compare subject group with subject group within the school
(2) To compare school group with school group across state

25. Scaled SAIs
Purpose: Within a school, to compare results in one subject with results in other subjects
Need standard baseline of comparison What’s used- QCS subject group results: Mean and Measure of spread

26. Scaled SAIs
In the within-school stage of scaling, the average and spread of the subject-group SAI’s are re-set (scaled) to the group’s average and spread of performance on the QCS test
The relative order and gaps are retained – only the scale has changed
Different processes used for small subject groups

28. Overall Achievement Indicator OAI
To produce a single rank order of students with the school, an Overall Achievement Indicator (OAI) is calculated – regardless of what subjects studies
This is the average result across each student’s ‘best five subjects’
(best – best scaled SAI’s; five subjects – 20 semester units of credit)

29. Example calculation for Sandra (p.1)
Subject
Level of Achievement
SAI
Scaled SAI
English HA
342
206
Mod Hist
VHA
385
248
Japanese LA
221
145
Economics SA
314
183
Graphics
263
172
Drama
240
131

30. Example calculation for Sandra (p.2)
Scaled SAI
206 English
248 Mod Hist
145 Japanese
183 Economics
172 Graphics
131 Drama
Calculate OAI
Mod Hist 248 * 4
Eng 206 * 4
Eco 183 * 4
Graph 172 * 4
Jap 145 *
Total 3816
OAI = 3816/ = 190.8

31. First stage of scaling – produced a single rank order with each school given by each student’s OAI
Second stage of scaling – allows these rank orders to be compared across all schools
The average and spread of OAI’s for each school are reset (scaled) to the average and spread of QCS test score for all students in that school

32. Example calculation for Sandra (p.3)
Statewide Scaled OAIs
Sandra’s School OAIs
Top scaled OAI in Sandra’s school
190.8
mean
Sandra’s scaled OAI
Bottom scaled OAI in Sandra’s school

33. Scaled OAI’s provide a single rank order for the whole state.
These scaled OAI’s compare each student with all other students in the state regardless of their combination of subjects and regardless of the school attended.

34. OP Slice Up Approximate distribution of students across OP bands
Band 1 - about 2% of students
Bands 2 to 6 - about 19% of students
Bands 7 to 21 - about 73% of students
Bands 22 to 24 - about 5% of students
Band 25 - about 1% of students

35. End