International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS)
UPDATED information for ICAS in 2021: ICAS has communicated with us the following:

We appreciate the many changes to normal schooling that your school is facing due to lockdowns and acknowledge how hard you are working to ensure educational continuity for your students. In response to New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Victoria schools not being able to sit ICAS in the original sitting window of 9 Aug – 3 Sep, last month we created a second sitting window from 5 Oct – 29 Oct.

However, due to the rapid changes that impact schools, we are extending your ICAS sitting window to Friday 26 Nov 2021 for the subjects: Mathematics, English, Science, Digital Technologies & the Spelling Bee

We trust that this extension enables your teachers, parents and caregivers, and, most importantly, your students, the opportunity to get back to classroom learning with ease and sit ICAS at a time that is right for you.

Due to this and the current situation, Harvest Primary School has not decided on any fixed dates as yet for our ICAS tests to be conducted.
We will communicate these dates and times once all students can return to school. Even though this is the case, we encourage families to continue to prepare for ICAS – information to support this is below:

Harvest Home Primary School is committed to meeting the educational needs of all our students. We provide the opportunity for students to participate in the International Competitions and Assessments for Schools, commonly referred to as ICAS.

ICAS are online assessments that are designed to recognise and reward academic excellence.

Please note, at Harvest Home Primary School these are optional assessments and are most suitable for those students who have the ability to apply learning in new contexts, using higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills. The curriculum-based assessments are connected to the relevant years of schooling and will challenge participants to demonstrate a deeper, integrated, and thorough level of learning. If students are interested, they can choose to complete 1, 2, 3 or more of the assessments.

The Benefits of the ICAS are:
• Provide objective ranking of performance
• Encourage students to attain greater academic success
• Require students to think beyond the classroom
• Recognise student success through medals and certificates

When ICAS is offered, there is no obligation for any student to participate; we simply provide these assessments for students who their families believe would benefit from this experience. The tests do have a cost which is paid directly to the University of NSW (UNSW Global), which is the ICAS distributor in Australia via a parent payment portal and unique HHPS school payment code.
The Year Level Equivalence Table will support you in finding the practice test at the appropriate level.

Certificates of Achievement:
Certificates acknowledging student performance is awarded by the UNSW.
These are based on the following:
• High Distinction – to the top 1% of students
• Distinction – to the next 10% of students
• Credit – to the next 25% of students
• Merit – to the next 10% of students
• Participation – to all other students

The Year Level Equivalence Table will support you in finding the practice test at the appropriate level.

Preparation for ICAS Success

There is no obligation to do anything that is going to cause families and students stress when wishing to prepare for ICAS assessments. The following tips are suggestions of how to prepare to ‘be your best’:

1) Be familiar with the test formats (2021 formats are provided below)

Digital Technologies:

  • Year 3 & 4 – 30 minutes for 30 questions
  • Year 5 & 6 – 35 minutes for 35 questions

Science

  • Year 2, 3 & 4 – 45 minutes for 30 questions
  • Year 5 & 6 – 55 minutes for 40 questions

Spelling Bee

  • Year 2 – 40 minutes for 35 questions
  • Year 3 – 40 minutes for 40 questions
  • Year 4 & 5 – 40 minutes for 45 questions
  • Year 6 – 40 minutes for 50 questions

English

  • Year 2 – 35 minutes for 35 questions
  • Year 3 & 4 – 45 minutes for 45 questions
  • Year 5 & 6 – 50 minutes for 50 questions

Maths

  • Year 2 – 35 minutes for 30 questions
  • Years 3, 4, & 5 – 45 minutes for 40 questions
  • Year 6 – 60 minutes for 40 questions

2) Access the 2021 ICAS Frameworks

These can be accessed at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1csyFnz5RzA5DnVDnqIeAH-faDm7IAQQq?usp=sharing
*if you are experiencing issues, then ‘cut and paste’ as a URL

3) Access the Test Preparation materials on the ICAS website at:
https://www.icasassessments.com/icas-preparation-tools/

4) Complete additional practice tests.

A selection of Practice tests are available to the families of HHPS students.
The link to these tests will be emailed to ICAS registered students directly (and shared via Compass)
These have been sourced and purchased by HHPS.

5) Be calm and just try your best

If you are require further information then please refer to:
https://www.unswglobal.unsw.edu.au/educational-assessments/products/icas-assessments/

In addition you may also like to contact the school.