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Mid point update for ACER’s Preschool Outcomes Measure Small-Scale Trial

Freya Lucas

Mar 03, 2025

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The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) has released some insights from the mid-way point of the Small-Scale Trial of the Preschool Outcomes Measure tool to be used in the National Applied Trial later this year.

The Preschool Outcomes Measure is an initiative of the Australian and state and territory governments under the Preschool Reform Agreement. It will support high-quality practice by equipping teachers and educators with access to a validated assessment tool for voluntary use to measure and inform children’s learning.

It will focus on two essential domains of early learning and development: executive function and oral language and literacy. ACER is leading the development of the Preschool Outcomes Measure, in partnership with Goodstart Early Learning and Ninti One.

The Small-Scale Trial of the Preschool Outcomes Measure tool is well underway across the country. Beginning in September 2024, ACER facilitators have visited over 100 preschool programs so far across the Northern Territory, Western Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania.

The Small-Scale Trial is continuing until the end of March, with facilitators visiting preschool programs in other participating states, and is an important step in developing the Preschool Outcomes Measure tool.

It involves ACER facilitators working one-to-one with children using structured assessment tasks to collect valid, reliable data to create national learning progressions in the two Preschool Outcomes Measure domains of oral language and literacy and executive function.

It also involves trialling some of the observation and reflection tasks that teachers and educators will have the opportunity to explore in the National Applied Trial later in 2025.

For states and territories intending to use an existing validated formative assessment tool as part of the National Applied Trial, an alignment criteria and process guide has been developed to enable alignment to the new national learning progressions.

Insights from the Small-Scale Trial so far

Integrating First Nations perspectives

The Small-Scale Trial has included a number of preschools serving First Nations communities, providing valuable insight into how the Preschool Outcomes Measure tool can respond to the needs and contexts of these communities.

The Northern Territory and Western Australia were among the first states and territories to participate in the Small-Scale Trial, including several remote First Nations communities in these jurisdictions. ACER facilitators worked with Ninti One cultural support team members to ensure that all engagement with First Nations children was culturally responsive and respectful to local community contexts.

Beginning with these contexts is helping to place Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives at the forefront of shaping the Preschool Outcomes Measure, reflecting the commitment of governments to develop a tool that is appropriate for use with First Nations children across Australia.

Teachers and educators have emphasised the importance of First Nations children seeing themselves and their contexts in the assessment materials and having opportunities to demonstrate their strengths in culturally appropriate ways.

ACER and Ninti One have engaged Wingaru to create materials for use in the National Applied Trial that will help to integrate First Nations perspectives and contexts into the assessment tasks for all children. Ninti One is also leading the project team’s collaboration with First Nations experts to co-design the assessment tasks and associated professional learning resources for teachers and educators.

Offering a range of assessment options

So far, the Small-Scale Trial has confirmed that the Preschool Outcomes Measure tool needs to give teachers and educators choices about how they observe and assess children’s learning, ranging from open-ended through to more structured experiences.

Teachers and educators shared with ACER the importance of having options to reflect the different approaches to assessment used in diverse preschool settings and the many ways that children demonstrate their learning and development.

A key innovation in the Preschool Outcomes Measure tool will be the ability to interpret diverse evidence of children’s learning using the national learning progressions.

This includes evidence from observation, reflection and one-to-one tasks. ACER will conduct psychometric analysis of the evidence that is collected using these methods during the Small-Scale Trial (mostly by ACER facilitators) and in the National Applied Trial (by teachers and educators themselves). This will ensure that all methods used in the final Preschool Outcomes Measure tool are valid and reliable.

Teachers and educators have been trialling some reflection tasks in the Small-Scale Trial and provided positive feedback about how these tasks are prompting them to look at children’s learning in more focused ways. Some are saying that the tasks affirm what they already focus on but give them more precise language to describe what they are seeing.

Using learning progressions to describe children’s strengths

The national learning progressions are the backbone of the Preschool Outcomes Measure and will form the basis of the National Applied Trial. The spread of tasks used in the Small-Scale Trial is capturing the breadth of capabilities that children demonstrate in the year before school, which will also be described in the national learning progressions for each of the two domains of oral language and literacy and executive function.

The diversity of children’s capabilities in preschools has been evident throughout the Small-Scale Trial to date. Many children have enjoyed showing what they can do in the assessment tasks, whether through working one-to-one with a facilitator or through observations of their everyday play.

Teachers and educators have also valued the opportunity to describe children’s strengths using the reflection tasks, which they are telling us capture the spread of children’s abilities and help orient their thinking to the breadth of the domains as described in the national learning progressions.

Looking ahead to the National Applied Trial

The Small-Scale Trial will wrap up in March, followed by development of the next iteration of the Preschool Outcomes Measure tool to be trialled by teachers and educators in the National Applied Trial.

This will include professional learning resources to equip teachers and educators to explore the draft tool and use it to support their everyday practice. ACER and governments intending to use the Preschool Outcomes Measure are working together to plan the National Applied Trial in their state or territory, recognising each jurisdiction’s diverse preschool systems and contexts.

To find out more about the Preschool Outcomes Measure, visit the Australian Government Department of Education and ACER websites or email preschooloutcomesmeasure@acer.org.

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