Contact
Maureen Lorimer (08) 9273 6397 [Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday]
Maureen.Lorimer@scsa.wa.edu.au

School leaders and teachers are reminded that the ABLES assessment tool is available  to all schools who deliver the Western Australian Curriculum and may be accessed via the School Curriculum and Standards Authority website at
https://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/resources/ablewa/getting-started-with-ablewa.

The ABLES assessment tool supports teachers to assess students on the basis of their abilities and provides explicit guidance material and resources that will assist teachers to effectively plan and teach students based on their individual learning needs. The assessments have been designed to describe skills and abilities that teachers can observe in everyday school and classroom contexts and interactions with students. The assessments cover seven learning domains.

Administrators are advised of the following recommended protocols when using the ABLES assessment tool:

• Record the password for the generic school email user name for ongoing access by users, e.g. when a school leader leaves the school.
• When creating a teacher listing, use their education email address as the user name.
• When creating classes, use year groups rather than room numbers, e.g. Year 1, Year 2.
• When adding a student, include their legal given name and surname and their Western Australian Student Number (WASN).

(Note: generally, the WASN will match the year group, e.g. in 2025 the WASN for Kindergarten is 44, Pre-primary is 43, Year 1 is 42.)

• Do not add the calendar year to the naming protocol as this will result in a large number of classes over time, as well as the possible duplication of student names.

These protocols allow for easy transfer of teachers and students from one school to another. If you require assistance in transferring a teacher or student to your school, email ablewa@scsa.wa.edu.au with the relevant information.

As the functionality of the assessment tool does not currently allow for automatic rollover of student data to the next year group, a manual update is required either at the end or beginning of the school year. The recommended procedure is:

• Mark the students in the highest year group as Graduated, e.g. the Year 6 students in primary schools.
• When all students have been moved, Delete this empty class.
• The Year 5 class is then edited to become Year 6, the Year 4 class to become Year 5 etc.
• Add a new Kindergarten class at the conclusion when the current Kindergarten class has been edited to become Pre-primary.

Similarly for secondary schools, commence with the Year 12 students as Graduated and edit backwards to the Year 7 class.

Contact ablewa@scsa.wa.edu.au if you have any questions regarding this process.

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