8th Annual Australian Islamic Schooling Conference: A Focus on Assessment

Australian Islamic Schools aspire to foster wholeness - spiritual, intellectual, physical, moral, ethical, imaginative, and social aptitudes. But pressures to perform academically create two challenges for our schools: a) standardised test scores unknowingly become the marker of success and b) assessing that which cannot be measured (e.g. morality and spirituality) is left open-ended. The conundrum is this: Australian Islamic Schools are undoubtedly graduating students with high academic performance but how do we measure impact on fostering wholeness? This year’s conference aspires to raise the difficult question we often don’t collectively get to explore: do we assess what matters most and if so, how?

This year’s conference extends our collective commitment to drawing from the Islamic Worldview to think about education in Australia anew. The focus on assessment will allow us to hone in on a critical area of our work in schools rarely problematised. Our aim is to push thinking and encourage renewed practice that holds true the very aspirations we have for Australian Islamic schooling.

Key themes of the conference include:

1. Islamic Worldview in relation to assessment
2. Assessing moral, spiritual, and ethical development
3. Early years assessment
4. Opportunities within Australian assessment and evaluation policy and practice
5. Research and practice related to alternative assessment and evaluation
6. Assessment and evaluation in Islamic Studies
7. Assessment and evaluation in Arabic Studies
8. Key debates on standardisation of assessment and evaluation
9. Student, parents, community perspectives, expectations, and aspirations related to assessment and evaluation
10. Rethinking school evaluations and teacher appraisals in relation to the Islamic Worldview
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