Memorandum to Schools 72/2009

13 July 2009

2009 October/November VCE Written Examination Centres

BACKGROUND

Schools were advised in Memorandum 4/2009 (16 February 2009) of the need to establish examination centres for the VCE written examinations to be held in both June and October/November. The enclosed forms relate to the establishment of these centres for the October/November written examination period.

Schools must meet the VCAA requirements for conducting VCE examinations as outlined in the 2009 VCE Written Examination Centre Agreement that was signed earlier this year. In signing the Agreement, Principals certified that they would comply with and be responsible for all VCAA security requirements for administering and conducting VCE written examinations.

School Principals are responsible for ensuring that all of their home students are appropriately accommodated and correctly supervised for ALL of their examinations, even when those students undertake some studies at other schools. Other schools include the Distance Education Centre Victoria, the Victorian School of Languages, other single LOTE providers and schools where the assessing school for a study is different from the home school.

The VCAA does not fund examination supervision costs when fewer than ten students from only one school are scheduled to present at an examination centre unless there is no other VCE provider within 15 km of the school. It is desirable to combine with one or more other schools for one or more examination sessions, particularly when fewer than ten students are enrolled in a study at your school. If schools do combine the VCAA will fund the supervision, even if the combined number of students is less than 10.

All examination centres, with the exception of those interstate and overseas, have a host school. When two or more schools combine, the host school will be the school where the examination centre is located or the school coordinating the arrangements for a centre, which is external to the school.

Deliveries of all examination papers and stationery will be made to the host school.

ACTION REQUIRED

The enclosed form/s should be completed and returned by mail to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), Attention Maria Fragale by no later than Friday 24 July 2009.

The form/s MUST be returned even if you are confirming arrangements as printed on the October/November 2009 School's Associated and Combined Centres Report.

CONTACTS

Any enquiries regarding examination centres should be directed to: Heidi Reiter on (03) 9225 2253 or Maria Fragale on (03) 9225 2255.

COMPLETING THE ATTACHED FORMS

October/November – 2009 VCE Examination Centres Form (Grey)

All schools must complete this form and return it to the VCAA by Friday 24 July 2009.

Examination centres are established at schools approved by the VCAA.

The form should be completed as follows:

Section A - To be completed by all schools.
- Section A must be completed and returned even if confirming the arrangements as printed on the 2009 School's Associated and Combined Centres Report, which is enclosed.
Section B - Has been divided into 2 sections.
- Section B1 to be completed if:
  - Arranging with another school to combine for one or more examinations
- Section B2 to be completed if:
  - Transferring one or more examinations back to your associated centre
Section C
- To be completed only if individual student/s is/are being transferred to another centre.

If you are confirming previous year’s arrangements and/or completing Section B1 and/or Section C, you must also complete the ‘Approval to combine / transfer for external examinations’ application form.

Approval to Combine/Transfer External Examinations Centre Form

The ‘Approval to combine/transfer for external examinations’ form must be completed if:

your school makes arrangements to combine with another school/s for a study/s, and/or
you are requesting the previous year’s arrangements with another school/s, and/or
you transfer individual student/s to another centre.

Failure to complete this form will mean changes will not occur and previous year’s arrangements will not continue.

It would be appreciated if the ‘Approval to combine/transfer for external examinations’ form/s is/are returned attached to the October/November 2009 VCE Examination Centres form. (Grey)

Please photocopy the approval form if more than one copy is required.

School’s Associated And Combined Centres Report – 2009 October/November Examinations (Yellow)

An annotated sample of the report has been included on the attachments section of this memorandum.

The information provided on the enclosed report lists the written examinations which will be undertaken by students at your school's examination centre during the 2009 October/November written examination period. This report should be checked carefully.

If the actual number of students for a study is less than the number you are expecting to present for the examination, you must check your enrolments by printing a class list from VASS for that study and asking the teacher to check that the correct students are on the list.

Should you discover that you have students who are still not enrolled, you must complete page 198 or 199 of the VCE and VCAL Administrative Handbook, attach a student full details sheet and cheque for the appropriate amount ie: $14.90 per unit 3- 4 sequence and mail this to the Student Records and Result Unit as soon as possible. Should you have any further queries please contact Student Records and Results on 9651 4376.

For most schools, the information printed on the report will remain unchanged.

Accordingly, the VCAA will only change the data if requested by a school when submitting the October/November - 2009 VCE Examination Centres Formand where required, the Approval to combine/transfer for external examinations form has been completed and returned. That is, if in 2008, you had arrangements with another school and in 2009, you wish for these same arrangements to continue, we MUST receive approval for this arrangement to re-occur. If we do not receive the approval, the examination will be transferred back to your associated centre.
If all of your students for a given study were/are presenting at another centre, then that centre's identification number and name are printed.

If you now prefer your students to sit for that examination at a different centre to that named, you must make that request on Section B1 of the examination centres form.

If instead you prefer that your students sit for that examination back at your associated centre, you must make that request on Section B2 of the examination centres form.

If you were/are the ‘host’ for another school/s for a particular study, the report will indicate both the
other schools’ code and the number of students from the other school/s who might attend your centre.

A list of all school codes and names can be accessed from VASS using menu: SCHOOL ADMIN >>>View School Details.

A row of asterisks indicates that your school has already requested a change of examination centre for individual student/s as distinct from a whole study.

To assist schools that may wish to combine for examinations, VASS will provide you with a list of the schools offering VCE studies. The menu in VASS is: SCHOOL PROGRAM >>> Unit 3-4 Home Schools (select Unit 4).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Student Assessment Timetable

It is the responsibility of the Principal to ensure that for each home school student enrolled in a unit 3/4 sequence an individual Student Assessment Timetable is produced. In the week beginning Monday 7 September schools will be able to print from VASS confirmed October/November Student Assessment Timetables for each of their home school students and to check that their students' centre/s are correct. The timetable, can be printed in study or date order for each student.
[Student Program→VCE Reports→Student Assessment Timetables]

You are also able to obtain two other written examinations summary reports from VASS:

A report listing external examination centres your home school students are attending. [Student Program→VCE Reports→Examination Venues Not At Home]

Report listing students from other schools for whom you are the 'host' school for their written examinations. [Student Program→VCE Reports→Host Examination Centre Summary (Written)]

The October/November examination timetable was printed as a lift out in the VCAA December Bulletin Issue No.66 and in the '2009 VCE Exams Navigator - Student Information and Timetable'.

Supervisors

Principals appoint supervisors subject to the conditions set out in the VCAA Statutory Declaration (copy in the VCE Examination Manual 2009 page 8) and the procedures established by the School Council or School Board.

Should any changes and/or additions occur to the supervisors already appointed, it will be necessary to notify the VCAA in writing immediately. For any newly appointed supervisors, the '2009 GAT and VCE Examination Supervisors' form must be completed and sent to the VCAA. This form can be downloaded from the VCAA website - Memorandum 4: 2009 GAT and VCE Examination Supervisors (PDF - 145)

It is imperative that all appointed supervisors sign a Statutory Declaration confirming their eligibility to act as a supervisor prior to the commencement of the examinations.

The VCAA has been advised that the Working With Children Check (WWCC) legislation may be applicable to VCE examination supervisors. For more information on this matter visit www.justice.vic.gov.au or call the WWCC information line on 1300 652 879

Any new Chief Supervisors appointed for the October/November examination period MUST attend a training session conducted by the VCAA. Schools will be notified of the dates via VASS.

VET

If you have students enrolled in Unit 3-4 sequence of a VCE VET program offering Scored Assessment and they are not listed on the 2009 School's Associated and Combined Centres Report then you may not have enrolled them correctly.

If you are expecting your students to sit the examination as part of the assessment for their VCE VET program they must appear on this report. The VCE VET programs offering Scored Assessment at Unit 3-4 level is attached at the bottom of this memorandum.

Any queries regarding VET enrolments should be directed to VET/VCAL team from the Student Records and Results Unit on 9651 4371; 9651 4379 for non-metropolitan schools. Alternatively email enquiries to student.records@edumail.vic.gov.au or Fax to 9651 4470.

VET: MULTIMEDIA

Schools that have students completing the unit 3-4 sequence in VET Multimedia MUST read the Memorandum 73/2009 and complete the details requested on the pink form enclosed with the Multimedia memorandum.

CCAFL LOTE Written Examinations – Tuesday 20 October

(Collaborative Curriculum and Assessment Framework for Languages)

If you currently have students at your school studying one or more of the languages listed below you MUST read memorandum 74/2009 and complete the details requested on the beige form that is enclosed with the CCAFL memorandum.

The VCAA will then allocate centres for students in the languages listed below and schools are required to printout confirmed student timetables from VASS in the week beginning Monday 7 September 2009.

Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Bosnian, Croatian, Dutch, Filipino, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Khmer, Korean first language, Korean second language, Macedonian, Maltese, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian and Yiddish.

Note: The CCAFL studies do not appear on the October/November '2009 School's Associated and Combined Centres Report'.

Compact Discs (CDs)

The written examinations for Music Styles, Music Performance: Group and Solo, VET: Music Industry and all LOTE (except Latin, Classical Greek and Classical Hebrew) andincluding the above CCAFL will require students to listen to Compact Discs (CDs)

These examinations require the school to provide a separate room (or rooms, if there are two or more examinations in the one session) and an appropriate CD player. The CD player must be of a suitable quality and positioned to enable all students to hear the examination clearly.

AUSLAN - Wednesday 28 October 2009

Schools are NOT required to organise a centre for the AUSLAN examination.
The VCAA will allocate a centre for students enrolled in the above study and schools will be notified in writing in the week beginning Monday 5 October 2009.

Timetable Clashes

Where a student has two examinations timetabled for the same session, one of the examinations will be moved to another session on the same day. Principals may consult the student and on behalf of the student request which examination is to be moved to a different session, (LOTE and Music examinations must be conducted at the scheduled time). 'Home' schools are responsible for running examinations for students with a timetable clash.
This request must be made in writing to: The Manager, Assessment Operations by Friday 24 July 2009.

3 Examinations In 1 Day

If a student has three examinations scheduled on the same day, the VCAA will contact the school in writing outlining the options available for these students.

Examinations outside Victoria (Overseas/Interstate) - Closing date is: Friday 24 July

Students who are eligible and to whom the VCAA gives permission to present for examinations at centres outside Victoria will be required to pay a service fee for the administration of papers from the VCAA to the nominated supervisor.

Eligibility Rules are printed on page 110, section 9.10.1 of the VCE & VCAL Administrative Handbook 2009.

Service fees are:

$56.00	-	Interstate, per written examination period. These examinations must be conducted and supervised at a Secondary School
$166.00	-	Overseas, per written examination period.

Applications will not be valid until the appropriate fees are paid.

Students are responsible for paying directly to the supervisor any supervision fee required and the cost of returning response materials immediately to the VCAA by security mail or courier.

Applications must be made in writing by photocopying and completing the form on page 204 - 205, of the VCE & VCAL Administrative Handbook 2009.

Hall Hiring

If two or more schools use a site in the community as a written examination centre, the VCAA may pay a hiring fee for the centre if the VCAA has given formal prior approval.

Schools expecting the VCAA to meet the hiring fee for a hall must seek prior approval in writing to Manager, Assessment Operations, by no later than Friday 24 July 2009.

For more detailed information relating to centres, supervisor allocation rules, furniture and facilities for examination centres, please refer to Memorandum 4/2009 (13 February 2009) and the 2009 VCE Examination Manual.

CLOSING DATES

Early notification is strongly urged to enable time for any necessary consultation between your School and the VCAA

Friday 24 July	-	October/November Written Examination Centres and Approval Forms.
	-	Multimedia Examination Centre Form (see memo 73/2009)
	-	CCAFL Written Examinations Centre Form (see memo 74/2009)
	-	Requests to sit examinations outside Victoria for the November examination period.
		Timetable Clashes
	-	Hall Hiring

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Combined Centre	-	A centre/s with which alternative arrangements have been made.
Home School	-	Student's major school.
Host School	-	School where the examination centre is located or School coordinating the arrangements for an external centre.
Assessing School	-	School responsible for the assessment of a study, where the school differs from the 'home' school.

ATTACHED

Study Abbreviations (DOC - 67.5KB)
2009 Approval to combine/transfer for written examinations (PDF - 461KB)
October / November 2009 VCE Examination Centres (PDF - 498KB)
Schools Combined Centre Report (PDF - 143KB)