Calculating The Overall Position
OPs are calculated by the Queensland Studies Authority (QSA) for all students who satisfactorily complete the Queensland Certificate of Education (QCE) (or equivalent) and who meet certain other criteria for receiving an OP, such as participating in the Queensland Core Skills Test (QCS Test).
The next level of calculation is to ensure that students are being equally assessed in ability in the school across subjects, and from school to school. Two levels of scaling are applied to ensure that each subject the student sits contributes equally to their OP. The first level of scaling - within school scaling - is applied to equalise each subject's achievement level within the school. An Overall Achievement Indicator (OAI) is calculated by working out the average of each student's SAIs for their best five authority subjects, subjects that have been approved and developed by the QSA (a student may study only five authority subjects, or if they study more, their best five are determined by the QSA).
The second stage of scaling - inter-school scaling - adjusts OAI ranks amongst all schools in the state to compensate for the differences between schools. This is an often misinterpreted stage of the OP calculation process. The QCS test is the only absolute common element between schools, so this is used to determine how well schools are equally assessing students. If, for example, you study Graphics and you are the average student of Graphics at your school, and the average QCS test result of graphics students at your school is above the state average, the assumption is that the graphics students at your school are above the average around the state, and your mark is boosted. Likewise, if you are at the top of your subject and the average QCS test result is low, your mark (along with your classmates) may be brought down. This can be avoided if you have a significant gap between you (as the top student) and the majority of your classmates who achieve low on the QCS test. To ensure a standard level of marking throughout the state, all schools send a selection of students from each subject, and multiple from each grading band (A, B, C, etc.), students folios to "Verification" also known as "panel" a conference where other teachers from around the state look over the marking schemes of other schools. Students grades are adjusted if need be depending on the outcome of verification.
When all students in Queensland have been ranked and scaled, they are assigned to one of the 25 OP bands.
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