NSW Check-in Assessment

It is an assessment program run by the NSW Department of Education for students in NSW public schools. Its stated purpose is to check in on where students are in their learning so teachers can adjust their teaching. This page is an independent study guide and has no official connection to the Department.

The Department runs the assessment for students in its public schools. The exact year levels that sit it, and the timing within the school year, are set by the Department and communicated through your school. Ask your teacher to confirm whether your year group is included.

Our study profile splits preparation into two equally weighted domains: Literacy at 50 per cent and Numeracy at 50 per cent. Literacy preparation covers comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, punctuation and short responses. Numeracy preparation covers number, measurement, geometry, statistics and multi-step problem solving.

We cannot state this. The Department's page for the assessment returned an error when this guide was compiled, so question counts and time limits are unconfirmed. Treat any figure you see elsewhere as unverified and check with your teacher or the Department's website before planning around it.

No pass mark is published in the material available to us, and the assessment is described as a check-in on learning rather than a competitive selection test. Treat it as diagnostic feedback for your teachers. Confirm how results are used and reported with your school.

No retake policy is confirmed in the available material. Because the assessment is administered by schools on the Department's schedule rather than booked individually by candidates, retakes are not something you arrange yourself. Ask your teacher if you have missed a sitting.

It is designed to be accessible across a year group rather than to rank students, so most questions should be approachable. Difficulty tends to come from multi-step numeracy problems and inference questions in reading, not from obscure content. Practising careful reading and clear working is the most efficient preparation.

Start with a short diagnostic in each domain to find weak areas, then alternate between Literacy and Numeracy rather than blocking one domain, since both carry equal weight. Finish with timed mixed practice under exam-like conditions and review every error to identify the pattern behind it.

Rushing the question stem and missing a qualifier such as not or except; answering from general knowledge instead of the passage; skipping working in multi-step numeracy items; and running out of time because one hard question absorbed too long. Practise a rule of moving on and returning later.

Go to the NSW Department of Education website at education.nsw.gov.au and search for the assessment, or ask your school directly. The Department's specific page for the assessment was unavailable at the time of writing, so details such as format, timing and reporting should be verified there.