How do I graduate with the VCE?

This next section describes how you need to work to graduate with the VCE. It also describes the assessment that you will do, how the results of your assessment will be reported to you and the range of uses those results can afford you.

What do I have to do to graduate?

Graduation with the VCE means that your success will be able to be carried with you in the form of a certificate recognised throughout Australia and internationally. Graduation requires that:

How will I know the standard?

Once you have chosen a program that will allow you to meet the graduation requirements, you need to produce work that is good enough to allow you to graduate. Graduation in the VCE depends on the satisfactory completion of the units that make up each of your studies. Satisfactory completion is indicated by the award of an ‘S’. Not meeting the requirements for satisfactory completion is indicated by an ‘N’.

Decisions about satisfactory completion, whether you are completing Units 1 and 2, or Units 3 and 4, are made by your school.

Decisions about satisfactory completion are based on your demonstration of each set of outcomes specified in the study design for each study. An outcome describes what you are expected to know and be able to do (the key knowledge and skills) by the time you have completed a unit. Each unit of a VCE study has between two and four outcomes.

For all studies, your school decides whether you have satisfactorily completed a unit. In order to make this decision, your school will set assessment tasks to see how you are progressing. These tasks will be set by your teacher from a list in the study design and marked within the school. Your teachers will give you a list of the tasks and the deadlines for handing them in. You would need to give a very good reason for a deadline to be extended, so if you have more than one deadline within a short time you’ll need to plan to get all your work done by the time it’s due. Failing to meet your school’s deadlines may mean not achieving satisfactory completion of the unit.

For Units 1 and 2, schools generally focus on ‘S’ or ‘N’ (although some schools may report on how well you have demonstrated the outcomes in the assessment tasks by awarding a grade on your work).

How will I be assessed in Units 3 and 4?

For Units 3 and 4, you will get grades as well as the ‘S’ or ‘N’ described above. At Units 3 and 4 level the VCAA supervises the assessment of all students.

A graded assessment is either a school-based assessment or an examination. Each VCE study has three graded assessments for the Unit 3 and 4 sequence, either two school assessments and one examination or one school assessment and two examinations. A similar process of assessment applies to scored VCE VET programs which have a school assessment and an examination. Your school will be able to tell you which VCE VET programs are scored. Every VCE study has at least one examination.

In the VCE, there are two kinds of school assessment.

The first is called School-assessed Coursework. (These are often referred to as SACs.) This assesses how well you have performed on the assessment tasks. These tasks are done mainly in class time. All studies except Studio Arts include School-assessed Coursework.

The second kind of school assessment is a School-assessed Task. Seven studies have a School-assessed Task – Art, Design and Technology, Food and Technology, Media, Studio Arts, Systems Engineering, and Visual Communication and Design. The requirements for the School-assessed Task are the same for every school and are set by the VCAA. Your school will design activities within the requirements to assist you in the completion of the School-assessed Task. The VCAA specifies how marks and grades are to be awarded. Your teacher does the marking and your school will send the VCAA a score to show how well you performed on the School-assessed Task.

External examinations

External examinations (written, oral, performance or electronic), are set and marked by the VCAA. Most are held in November, but a small number of studies have examinations in June or October.

What are the checks on VCE assessment?

For all forms of assessment, both school assessment and examinations, the VCAA has careful procedures to ensure that all schools throughout the state are marking to the same standard. They involve statistical procedures and multiple checks on each aspect of your assessment. You can obtain details from your school or the VCAA website.