Frequently Asked Questions
About ICAS
ICAS Assessments are used in a growing number of countries. As year-level names vary across countries, it is simpler to code the ICAS Assessments as A, B, C, D, etc., and provide a key to identify the relevant year-level for each country. Click here for the Papers to Year Levels equivalence table
ICAS subjects and year-level information can be seen here
Each ICAS subject has been carefully researched so that the test content is relevant and interesting. The Assessment Framework provides details of how this works for each ICAS subject.
ICAS does not refer to any curriculum but each ICAS subject has been aligned to its own assessment framework. These frameworks were developed by carefully examining the curriculum of each Australian state and identifying common content, skills, and overarching principles. In addition curriculum, documents from other countries, including New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom were looked at. This process of identifying the common aspects of each subject across Australia and overseas curricula has allowed ICAS to operate independently of any given curriculum while remaining relevant to what is taught in classrooms.
Questions used in ICAS Assessments are written by experienced classroom teachers and subject matter experts. These writers utilize a wide range of materials and resources to ensure the questions are current, relevant, and engaging for the students.
All items are peer-reviewed by an external panel. This panel consists of practicing classroom teachers and subject matter experts (including university academics). This panel considers the validity, reliability and currency of each assessment item. Once ratified by the external panel, the questions are placed in tests. All tests maintain a balance of items taking into account the difficulty level of the questions and the strands, topics and skills tested.
Using the same questions enables us to draw comparisons between each year level to see how different cohorts progress over time. In order to do this, we need to know how one test paper compares in difficulty with another. By comparing the information obtained from a few questions that appear in two different papers, we can get a good indication of the relative difficulty of each paper. This process is called ‘equating’ and is applied to test papers across year levels (called vertical equating) and across calendar years (horizontal equating).
An external assessment removes even a faint trace of subjectivity that stems from familiarity between a teacher and their students. An external view, especially from a global body, reflects a collective and objective world view of a student’s performance. Exposing the students to international testing patterns prepares them to become global players.
Schools and teachers can access all their assessment data online. Drill down further into your assessment data to gain a more detailed understanding of performance
The School will be sent a Student Report and certificate for each child. These can be sent home and/or contribute to the student portfolio. This report provides accessible diagnostic information about the student's performance and highlights any strengths or weaknesses.
There is no change in the format of the assessment. However, all the assessments will be taken online only. All invigilating teachers and students should be equipped with relevant devices which meet all technical requirements.
You can learn about the different types of ICAS questions in the following video:
No. Entry to ICAS is school-based only. UTC is unable to accept requests from parents to enroll their child into an ICAS subject unless the child is being home-schooled in a registered home school.
Yes, students can bring their own devices. Teachers and students can use the Technical Readiness test to ensure all devices meet the technical requirements.
Yes, as long as it has a suitable internet connection.
Yes, as long as it has a suitable internet connection. We recommend that you limit a test session to a maximum of 100 students.
Please take note that ICAS will be held online in the test centers or schools. No participants are allowed to take the ICAS at home.
Student must only sit the paper for the year level in which s/he is currently enrolled. A student should not sit on more than one paper in any one subject. Click here for the Papers to Year Levels equivalence table
Digital Technologies is now considered foundational skill that all children need in order to progress satisfactorily as they move from Primary to more specialised content in Stem subjects in high school.
We have standardised the year levels Digital Technologies is available in, now start early in students' schooling with Introductory papers and finish with Paper E as students are moving into high school. We continue to test a comprehensive range of content in this subject, content aimed at developing the skills required to tackle all high school study in the 21st century.
No. Students must sit the ICAS paper for the year level in which they are currently enrolled for that subject. Students must only attempt one year-level paper per subject.
ICAS Preparations
Discuss the matter with the Principal of your school to explore possibilities.
The students should be registered according to their year level when they sit for ICAS in September (or August for Writing). For instance, in March or April, the students are in grade 4, thus they should be registered as grade 5 because they will sit in grade 5 on ICAS sitting dates in September.
Send us an email to info@icasindonesia.co.id with updated information using the school code and updated contact details.
We use the primary contact email address to send official notifications including order confirmations, account activations for the Assessments Portal and results in release announcements.
The Assessments Portal is where ICAS tests are run. If you have run ICAS online previously, you can log in to the Assessments Portal using your email address and password. If you are a first-time user of the Assessments Portal, you will need an account to gain access.
The Results Portal is where results can be viewed and analyzed. To log in using the 8-digit school code and password provided.
For support and templates, please go to the ICAS support page. The support link will also be available from the Assessments Portal this year for easier access.
If you have forgotten your login details, go to icas.site/start and select Forgot your Password. Enter your email address most likely used when you first activated the account (this is usually your work email address). You will be asked to set a new password.
If you are a new school, an activation email will be sent to your school's nominated administration email address shortly after you purchased ICAS assessments.
Yes, we have standard templates that your school can adapt to suit your needs. Please visit the ICAS support page here.
Please consult ICAS Terms and Conditions available here.
No. The skills being tested will reflect the appropriate level in the learning curve expected to be achieved by the student in the target age group. The question will be based on the universal curricular and co-curricular syllabi including textbooks, lab notes, projects, and other sources.
The ICAS past papers are only available to buy in Janison's website.
There are two types of teacher roles in the Assessments Portal: Teacher and Unrestricted Teacher. We recommend that any staff who are going to be supervising the test on test day be assigned the Unrestricted Teacher role and not the Teacher role, so as to have access to all students who will be sitting the ICAS tests. This is especially useful for secondary school staff who are supervising students from different home-room classes. If you wish to allocate the Teacher role to your staff, you will need to ensure that you include class information in your student import and that you assign class(es) to teachers. Students can only be allocated to one class in the Assessments Portal. The class field is not mandatory for ICAS when uploading student details into the Assessments Portal.
If there are staff in the school with the Teacher role, you must assign them a class. To do this, click “Assign classes to teachers” from the School Coordinator dashboard. The Teacher’s account must have been activated prior to assigning classes to teachers.
Note: As the School Coordinator and Unrestricted Teacher roles have access to all students in the Assessments Portal for your school, you do not need to assign them any classes.
How do I add my students to a class after I have imported their details into the Assessments Portal?
If you have already uploaded your student data without classes, you will need to reupload the spreadsheet with the class field populated. You can only add a class to existing individual student records if the class already exists in the Assessments Portal.
All the user roles except School Leader can edit the name of a student. It is important that the student’s name is spelled correctly in the Assessments Portal as this is how it will appear on their ICAS certificates. To edit student information, log in to the Assessments Portal, go to Management Students, click the student’s name that you wish to edit and then click Edit Student.
Note: Any changes to student information, e.g. Name, DOB, must be done prior to the student sitting the assessment.
All the user roles except School Leader can edit the name of a student. To edit student information, log in to the Assessments Portal, go to Management Students, click the student’s name that you wish to edit and then click Edit Student.
Note: Any changes to student information, e.g. Name, DOB, must be done prior to the student sitting the assessment.
Gender is not a compulsory field. If you upload this information into the Assessments Portal, it will appear in the online reports where you will have an option to view results by gender. Gender information is only visible in the school reports.
If your school is interested in analyzing results by gender you can include gender information when you import student data into the Assessments Portal. By doing this you will subsequently be able to filter by gender when viewing the student reports in the Results Portal.
This is required to assess if student devices meet all the technical requirements.
The locked-down browser app (called Janison Replay) is designed to prevent your students from accessing other applications such as web pages, cameras, spell checks, screenshotting, keyword shortcuts, and other features during the live assessment. For more information, check out our locked-down browser page.
Spelling Bee and Writing require the locked-down browser application. Only one download is needed per device.
Please note that the Spelling Bee does not require a microphone as students will type their answers in designated fields provided for each test item/question in the locked-down browser.
Verbal responses are not applicable, and headphones are needed throughout the assessment for each year level.
Entering ICAS
2024 ICAS Sitting Week:
Writing: 5 August - 9 August 2024
Mathematics & Digital Technologies: 9 September 2024 - 17 September 2024
English & Science: 16 September 2024 - 24 September 2024
Spelling Bee: 23 September 2024 - 27 September 2024
Yes. On the day of the ICAS test, the supervising teacher needs to log in to the Assessments Portal to create and start the test session.
Yes. There are test supervision instructions for each subject for ICAS assessments. They can be found on the ICAS Support Page or can be accessed from the Assessments Portal dashboard.
You can schedule them before, during or after school.
Give your students the URL: icas.site/start.
Each student is provided with their own unique one-time code to access their test. They access their test via a test session code that the teacher creates on the day of the test. In addition, the student can only access the test once the teacher has started the test session. The teacher monitors the students that are sitting the test during the test session via the Supervise Live Test screen in the Assessments Portal.
What if my student(s) are interrupted (becomes ill or needs to go home) during an online assessment?
If a student, for example, becomes ill during the test the teacher will pause the student’s test. This means that the student will not be able to access it from home. Where appropriate, on a subsequent day within the official sitting period, the teacher can create a new test session for the student. The student can continue with their test using the same one-time code and the newly created test session code.
Pause is used to temporarily stop a student’s test. They will be postponed when the session closes at the end of the day. And then the student’s test can be restarted another day with a new session code and the student can continue where they left off.
If a student logs in to a test AFTER you have started the test session, you will have to manually allow them into the test. Do this by clicking on the Waiting Entry tab. Check the box next to each student’s name, then click Allow Start. Click Confirm.
Click Start Session on your Supervise live test screen.
Reload the page/ refresh the browser and the question should render correctly.
If the question is still not rendering correctly, check that the browser and device meet the technical requirements for the test.
If the issue is confined to only a few students in the session, then it’s most likely a connectivity issue and you will need to seek the assistance of your IT team.
Check the students have entered the test session code first and then their own one-time code and they have not been mixed up. Both codes are 8-characters in length.
In special circumstances, permission may be given for a school to participate in the ICAS on an alternative date. All requests for an alternative date must be submitted in writing by the school Principal or their nominee no later than two weeks before the official sitting window. Schools that sit on an alternative date may not be eligible for ICAS medals.
Schools can register by emailed us an Entry Form to info@icasindonesia.co.id. The Entry Form you can be found on the ICAS Support Page
Yes. You can make additional participants by emailing us at info@icasindonesia.co.id.
Please note that we cannot make additional participants after the registration session is closed.
Results
The results for all tests are available in the Results and Reports Portal. Access to the Portal can be done in the following ways:
1. Go to the Results Portal and log in using your school’s 8-digit school code and password.
2. Go to the Assessments Portal and click on Results on the dashboard or on the Results icon in the navigation bar and follow the link. You will be taken directly to the Results Portal through a single-sign-on process.
No, you do not need to print certificates for ICAS as we supply printed certificates to your school. UTC will send these out to you.
Yes. ICAS Assessments has a secure, interactive site that allows you to view and analyze your school and student data.
Log in to the Result Portal using your school code and password to access your results online. Please note the school results are available only to participating schools, their Principals and the ICAS subject coordinators.
The results for all tests are available in the student section of the Results Portal using their TAP-ID and PIN printed on the back of their ICAS student certificate.
•Student certificates are despatched to schools after results are released online.
•If a student has participated in ICAS previously their TAP-ID and PIN from the previous year can be used to access the Results Portal.
All reports and certificates are sent to the school in the first instance. Results are also available online. To access this facility, parents and their children will need their TAP ID's and passwords to log in. The TAP ID is printed on the student report and is valid for all ICAS subject results.
No. Results are dispatched directly to the school. Parents need to ask their child’s school for their child’s results. Reprints of results and certificates should also be requested through the school as EATS cannot adequately identify the person requesting the reprints.
Students
After knowing exactly which skill area they are weak in, they can
Focus on learning the concept better
Revisit the fundamentals of the concept
Spend some time practicing the application of the concept
Read more books to improve their comprehension skills
Schools
Discuss with the concerned teacher if a particular class shows a weakness in the understanding of one particular concept uniformly
Discuss with parents of children whose results cause anxiety
Plan remedial sessions with individual groups to overcome their weakness in particular skill areas
Link to article on how to using ICAS result to improve your school performance
Parents
Give support to nurture their child’s core strengths
Plan remedial lessons with teachers to help their child's weak areas
To get your child’s ICAS certificate reissued, please contact our customer service team here. The cost for ICAS certificate reprint fee is AU$40 per certificate plus courier fee. Please contact us if you need to reprint your ICAS certificate.
Awards & Recognition
Certificates suitable for inclusion in a portfolio are awarded to all participants. Please refer to the Awards & Recognition page for information about grade distribution.
Yes. Schools are advised of all medal winners.