The Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) recognises that a student’s participation in assessment may be adversely affected by disability, medical condition/s, or other circumstances outside of their control. Access arrangements and reasonable adjustments (AARA) are designed to assist these students.
Compliance with the AARA process ensures students with disability are able to participate in education and training on the same basis as students without disability. This is achieved primarily through consultation with the student and/or their parents/carers.
AARA are action/s taken by the school so that an eligible student can participate in assessment on the same basis as other students. AARA processes are relevant to assessment in General, Applied and Essential subjects and Short Courses.
The use of AARA for student assessment is based on the functional impact of the condition for which AARA are sought. Students with the same condition may experience highly varied impacts on their education and on their ability to demonstrate their learning, knowledge and skill in assessments on the same basis as other students.
Most AARA applications for students with disability should reflect existing arrangements that have been in place and documented, e.g. as evidence to support judgments for the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on school students with disability (the NCCD). Adjustments required due to temporary medical conditions or injuries and unforeseen events should be identified and managed as soon as possible, in consultation with students and parents/carers.
A summary of the DBSHS AARA process is below:
