Back

ICAS FAQs for schools

Getting started

A school code and password were issued to your school when it initially registered with ICAS Assessments. The teacher at your school who coordinated ICAS in previous years may know the details.

Alternatively, please contact us to reset your password.

The Parent Payment System is our easy to use system that allows parents to make direct payments for their child’s ICAS assessments. To use this system, schools need to sign up for PPS and share the system registration details with parents.

PPS automatically creates students' accounts in the Assessments Portal, so schools should not import students or allocate licenses when using PPS.

Find more information on the PPS here.

The closing dates for schools to sign up for the Parent Payment System changes each year. To view this year's dates, click here.

However, your school may decide to close their Parent Payment System earlier than the specified dates.

You can log in on our Shop page. Once logged in, you can purchase ICAS tests and sign up for the Parent Payment System

To run ICAS tests, you need to log into the Assessments Portal. If you have run ICAS online previously, you can log in using your email address and password. If you are a first-time user, you will need an account to gain access.

To view results, you need to log into the Results Portal using the same 8-digit school code and password for the shop.

Log in to the Shop and click on My Account to view the primary contact email and address details that we have on file for your school.

Click here to contact us.

We use the primary contact email address to send official notifications, including order confirmations, account activations for the Assessments Portal, and results release announcements.

It is possible your school’s firewall is blocking access to the Shop. Please contact your school’s IT department for assistance. If you are still experiencing difficulties, please contact us.

You can find our guides and support templates on our support page. You can also access this page from the Assessments Portal.

After you've purchased ICAS for the first time from the shop, your Assessments Portal account activation email will go to your nominated email address. This is usually the school's administration email account (e.g. [email protected]). Please check this email's inbox, or the spam/junk folder.

If your school's ICAS coordinator has sent you an account activation email, please check your email inbox, or your spam/junk folder. Sometimes, the school's email filters or firewalls block external emails. Please check with your school's IT coordinator if you think the email may be blocked by a firewall.

Janison Solutions Pty Limited is required to be registered and to collect NZ GST from NZ resident consumers. Please refer to the below links for more information on our GST requirements.

Supplying remote services into New Zealand
GST for remote services

Janison Solutions Pty Limited’s New Zealand GST number is 133-788-735.

You can find an in depth comparison of ICAS vs Reach in our blog here.

Please contact our customer service team:

1800 931 775 (Australia toll-free)
0800 440 904 (New Zealand toll-free)
+61 2 5565 2217 (International)

Email: [email protected]

Communicate

Yes, we have standard templates that your school can adapt to suit your needs. Please visit the ICAS support page here.

The Janison Privacy Policy can be found at the footer of the ICAS Assessments website, or here.

Prepare for testing

This depends on the type of account your staff hold in the Assessments Portal. There are two types of teacher roles in the 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, so they 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 data 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 your 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.

No, for schools that have used the Parent Payment System, student information will be imported automatically. Your school will not need to import students into the Assessments Portal.

The class field is not mandatory for ICAS Assessments. It is at the school’s discretion to include a class to assist with the process of printing student logins and analysing results.

If you have already uploaded your student data without classes, you will need to re-upload the spreadsheet with the class field populated (ensuring that all the other fields are exactly the same as the original uploaded spreadsheet, to avoid creating duplicate accounts). You can only add a class to existing individual student records using the Edit Student function if the class already exists in the Assessments Portal.

Only a School Coordinator user 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.

Only a School Coordinator can edit the date of birth for 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.

Gender is not a compulsory field. If you upload this information into the Assessments Portal, it will appear in the online reports where you have the option to view results by gender. Gender information is only visible in the school reports. The Assessments Portal allows you to enter in Male (M), Female(F) or Unspecified (X) for your students.

If your school is interested in analysing results by gender you can include gender information when you import student data into the Assessments Portal. By doing this you will be able to filter by gender when viewing the student reports in the Results Portal.

Please contact our customer service team within 5 business days of purchase:

1800 931 775 (Australia toll-free)
0800 440 904 (New Zealand toll-free)
+61 2 5565 2217 (International)

Email: [email protected]

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.

The Technical Readiness Test needs to be completed on every device used for ICAS. You can provide parents / guardians with the link to the Technical Readiness Test if their children are using their own devices.

This is an online test (similar to internet speed tests) that assesses whether your devices meet the necessary technical requirements. You can find more information on our technical requirements page.

Yes, Chromebooks must be running as Managed Devices in Kiosk mode, which allows the locked-down browser application to run correctly.

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 test sessions to a maximum of 100 students.

We have a YouTube video outlining the different types of questions used in ICAS, which you can find here.

The closing date for school purchases can be found on the Assessment Calendar page on our website for Australia, New Zealand and International students.

Sit the test

Yes. On the day of the ICAS test, the supervising teacher needs to log in to create and start the test session.

Yes, the Test Supervisor Instructions. This document explains how to supervise each subject and year level. It also provides information on how many questions are asked, and how long each test needs to be run for.

You can schedule them before, during or after school.

When accessing non-locked down browser tests, please provide your students with this short URL: icas.site/start.

When accessing tests requiring the locked-down browser, it may ask you to provide a URL. The URL is: https://icasassessments.janisoninsights.com/

Each student is provided with their own unique one-time code to access their test. They access the test via a test session code that the teacher creates on the day. 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. Teachers should not swap students' one-time codes.

If a student has to leave the test mid-way, the teacher can pause their test. When appropriate, on a subsequent day within the sitting window, 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. While the test is paused, the student will not be able to access it from home.

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. You can do this by clicking on the "Waiting Entry" tab. Check the box next to each student’s name, then click "Allow Start". Once done, click "Confirm."

Click Start Session on your Supervise live test screen.

Refresh the page and the question should render correctly. If the question is still not rendering correctly, check that the browser and device meet the technical specifications 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 assistance of your IT team.

Check the students have entered the test session code first, and then their own one-time code afterwards. The order of these codes cannot be mixed up. Both codes are 8-characters in length.

Yes. Each ICAS test randomises the question options, so that two students sitting next to each other will not have the same order of questions.

The duration of ICAS exams change depending on the student's year level and subject they are sitting. The exact duration of the exams can be found on the Test Supervisor Instructions.

You should add 2 to 3 minutes onto the test's duration to account for any image loading delays. We do not recommend adding anything longer than this for an ICAS test as too much extra time may impact a student's medal eligibility. Please note that image loading delays are usually to do with your internet connection's bandwidth, so it is a good idea to consult with your IT specialist prior to running ICAS to ensure that the WiFi can handle many devices online at the same time.

To determine a rough average time for each question, you can divide the test duration by the total number of questions in the test. For example ICAS Mathematics Year 3 may have 30 questions in 30 minutes, which works out to 1 question per minute. Generally, the first few questions are easy, so students should spend about 30 seconds answering them, and spend a little longer than a minute on the last few questions, which are harder.

Unfortunately not.

A "non-attempt" is where a student skips through a question without reading or submitting an answer

Review results

The results for all tests are available in the Results Portal. You can access the Portal via the ICAS website by going to Assessments > ICAS > Results Portal, then clicking on "sign in" in the school results section.

No, you do not need to print certificates for ICAS as we supply printed certificates to your school. We will mail these out to you.

Results for all ICAS subjects (except ICAS Writing) are released online approximately 8-10 working days after the official sitting window has closed. Writing is released approximately 4-6 weeks after the official sitting window because it requires manual marking.
Certificates are despatched to schools approximately 2 weeks after results are released.

A teacher who has access to the Results Portal can download Student Handouts that contain each student's TAP ID and PIN (one per page).

Teachers can print these and distirbute them to students. Alternatively, student certificates are despatched to schools approximately 2 weeks 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.

To request tests to be re-evaluated, please contact our customer service team:

1800 931 775 (Australia toll-free)
0800 440 904 (New Zealand toll-free)
+61 2 5565 2217 (International)

Email: [email protected]

The criteria for winning a medal is based on several factors: top score in the locale, year level, and subject.

Please see the table below for the awards bands for an ICAS test.
ICAS Assessments Awards Percentile categories for awards
High Distinction The top 1% of participants
Distinction The next 10% of participants
Credit The next 25% of participants
Merit The next 10% of participants
Participation All remaining participants
 

For Australian schools:

  • ICAS certificate reprint, admin fee and shipping costs - $40 (excluding GST)

For International schools:

  • ICAS certificate reprint including shipping costs for  schools- $50 (excluding GST)

To get an ICAS certificate reissued, please contact customer service here.

The cost to get an ICAS medal reissued is $200 (excluding GST) + courier fee.

 

To get an ICAS medal reissued, please contact customer service here.

Need further support?
Our customer service team is ready to assist you with your queries.
Schools outside of Australia and New Zealand: Please contact your local representative.