New Metrics International Schools Program

The New Metrics International Schools Program is a global community of schools working together to strengthen the assessment, reporting and credentialing of complex competencies through collaboration, tools and professional learning.

A program for CIS member schools delivered in partnership by the Council of International Schools and Melbourne Metrics to provide practical support to schools seeking to strengthen the assessment, reporting and credentialing of complex competencies.

Measuring What Matters

Traditional assessment and recognition methods are no longer fit for purpose, defining students’ success too narrowly. They are unable to assess the vital foundational learning competencies that students need to thrive in school and beyond. What is valued is not what is measured. Universities, schools and young people themselves are advocating for new metrics of students’ successes. Together, the Council of International Schools (CIS) and Melbourne Metrics (MM) have identified the need for a new approach to assessment and recognition that values a broader range of students’ competencies and successes.

The New Metrics International Schools (NMIS) program is a community of practice of likeminded schools and a professional learning network which harnesses the power of assessment to cultivate next-generation learning. Specifically, the NMIS program will supply schools with assessment and reporting tools and methods that they can align with their own school’s learning ambitions and the support to implement this approach in their schools.

Schools joining the NMIS program will:

  • Connect with a group of supportive, responsive and open-minded international schools who share a willingness to collaboratively contribute to this future focused agenda of recognising a broader range of students’ successes
  • Utilise standards-based (not standardised) assessment tools developed by Melbourne Metrics that position teachers who deeply know their learners as best placed to use their professional judgement on behavioural-based indicators of students’ typical behaviour. This approach draws on an evidence base of a decade of research supporting the validity and reliability of these tools.
  • Access and use a suite of tools and support materials, including the University’s online assessment platform Ruby, to support best practices in their context. Resources are provided to support the development of a range of complex competencies, including: Agency in Learning, Collaboration, Communication, Acting Ethically, Quality Thinking, Active Citizenship and Personal Development.

NMIS partner schools

Information pack and application

Applications are invited from CIS member schools to join the NMIS program. More detailed information for schools and leaders is available here in this information pack. It is strongly recommended that school leaders read this information pack carefully before submitting an application to join the NMIS program.

Download information pack for schools

Schools ready to apply for the NMIS program may fill out their application form below. Please note that this application requires approval from the Head of School. Applications for cohort two are now being accepted.

Apply now

2026 Webinar recording

Interested schools may wish to watch the recording of the 2026 ‘Find Out More’ webinar below. This webinar featured reflections from experienced school leaders from one of our Australian schools who has been working with Melbourne Metrics for over five years, as well as leaders from one of our 'first mover' NMIS schools which has just entered the program.

What leaders are saying

Enterprise Professor Sandra Milligan

Executive Director, Melbourne Metrics

“International schools offer students such rich learning experiences that help develop well-rounded and capable young people, yet traditional assessments only recognise a cognitive sliver of this learning, often through high-stakes, standardised exams. At Melbourne Metrics, we're thrilled to partner with CIS to offer next-generation assessment and recognition tools and resources that can capture and celebrate a much broader picture of what young people know and can do so that schools can support learners to thrive at school and beyond.”

Jane Larsson

Executive Director of the Council of International Schools

“Assessing how students demonstrate their competencies and apply these in their work and daily interactions is a project we are eager to undertake and build upon, working in partnership with Melbourne Metrics and a select cohort of CIS schools and universities. School and university leaders alike believe that portraying what students can do is essential. The New Metrics International Schools Programme will develop a complementary assessment record that will help us all to predict a student’s agency to enter university life, undertake new studies, and succeed.”

Professor Pasi Sahlberg

Professor in Educational Leadership, The University of Melbourne

“Teachers and principals are trained professionals who know our young people and their needs well. Melbourne Metric’s approach to assessment and learning with strong focus on healthy relationships, agency and deeper learning equips young people to develop and also demonstrate their multiple competencies they need in uncertain and complex world. Join us at The University of Melbourne to be at the forefront of this new era in education.”

Cameron Paterson

Director of Learning, Wesley College, an IB Continuum School

“Young people are entering a highly unpredictable world and the skills required to thrive in this environment are complex. Traditional educational assessments fall short in capturing the richness of a student’s educational experience. We are proud to be involved in the creation of a new learning credential that recognises a range of learner competencies. We are embracing the opportunity to recognise more of what young people know and can do. It is essential that we create new metrics that are more than just academic, so that each student leaves school feeling confident, capable, empowered, and prepared for lifelong learning”

Wendy Johnson AM

Principal of Glenunga International High School, a CIS member school

"Our students have achieved excellent academic results over the past years, but we are well aware that this traditional content-valuing assessment fails to capture the human side of our students and it is this human side that will carry them through the world as a successful adult. We have been delighted to work with Melbourne Metrics on a new way of assessing students which provides them with agency in learning and captures a wide range of human skills. The robustness of the assessment of the capabilities through New Metrics has enabled us to see the capabilities as fitting an assessment-dominated world while providing our students with important credentials for the world beyond school. We say to our students: Do you want to be first class humans or second class robots. New Metrics provides a pathway for us to develop our first class humans. This new approach within a traditional framework has precipitated our teachers changing their pedagogy, and their partnerships with students. CIS values and encourages socially responsible leadership. Working with Melbourne Metrics to focus our community's attention on the capabilities we value as a learning community, allows us to measure what matters to a new generation of students and to celebrate all the ways our young people are finding success.”

Nick Casey

Head of Primary, Dulwich College Suzhou

"In an age where learning is happening everywhere, not just in classrooms but across digital, social, and global contexts, how can schools better recognise what truly matters: the competencies that prepare students to lead, contribute, and find meaning in a rapidly changing global landscape? At Dulwich College Suzhou, our partnership with the University of Melbourne's NMIS program is part of our ongoing journey to answer that question."

Reflections from the NMIS Community

FAQ

  • The NMIS program is only open to CIS member schools. Schools can investigate CIS membership here, and explore other ways to engage with Melbourne Metrics tools and resources here.

  • CIS and MM are in close collaboration with IB, CA and other assessment authorities. All of which are supportive of this program and the use of next-generation assessment approaches by international schools. Students and schools will not be penalised by other assessment authorities by joining the NMIS program.

    Below are quotes from some major curriculum and assessment authorities that speak to this support:

    "Cambridge works closely with CIS on a range of forward-thinking initiatives and has engaged in discussions with Melbourne Metrics. We’re excited about the upcoming launch of NMIS at the CIS Global Forum in Basel and look forward to collaborating with any Cambridge school involved in NMIS."  -- Claire Varlet-Baker, Products and Services Director, International Education, Cambridge University Press & Assessment

    "The IB will actively participate with Melbourne Metrics and CIS during this partnership, using the experience of IB schools within it explore the application of this kind of assessment to IB students.  We understand that Melbourne Metrics  works with IB schools in Australia and that those schools have already informed the development of Melbourne Metric's work over the years. We would like to think that IB schools will be well represented in the New Metrics International Schools partnership." -- Dr Shehzad Jeeva, Chief Education Officer, The International Baccalaureate Organisation

  • The NMIS program requires a collaborative mindset and willingness for schools to form a trusting community of practice. In our experience, this is best done when people come together in face-to-face settings, and not recorded. While some keynote style presentations at F2F events will be recorded and made available to participating schools’ wider teams, no participation in the workshop style sections of the events will be possible, and schools we currently work with consistently highlight this learning from and with colleagues at likeminded schools as the richest experiences of this work. It is for this reason that attendance at F2F events by at least one member of the school team is required as a pre-requisite for joining the program.

  • As many of the resources developed by Melbourne Metrics contain intellectual property owned by the The University of Melbourne, we are limited in what we can share publicly with schools and educators we are not in partnership with. One free resource we can offer is this three-module professional development course around the value of assessing complex competencies. We can also share this sample ‘how to assess competency kit’ that outlines some of our approach. This sample kit is for the competency of ‘Agency in Learning’.

    We are also able to share media and research publications which can be found here.

  • While we are supportive of wider learnings from the project being propagated to as many interested parties as possible, such as the value in competency-informed education and the use of standards based, not standardised assessments, participating schools in this program will use tools and resources developed with The University of Melbourne protected intellectual property. The use of these will be limited to participating schools and sharing of access to these tools and resources to other schools and parties will be restricted under intellectual property law.

  • Melbourne Metrics provides a suite of tools and resources, however how schools implement and use these is up to them. Melbourne Metrics will provide coaching and guidance in making those decisions, but it will be different for every school. Some schools find a particular year level team or departmental team are interested in this work and keen to integrate competency-based education and assessment into their classrooms, so these teams may lend themselves to being a good place to start. Other schools think signature programs which often break away from the confines of traditional classrooms, such as interdisciplinary units, off timetable days/weeks, outdoor education experiences, service learning or residential experiences allow for deep competency development and demonstration. Other schools are keen to use these assessments to recognise and celebrate transitional points in schooling, such as in the year before the transition from primary school to middle school or middle school to senior school. Other schools have adopted a whole school at once approach. School leaders, in consultation with their assessment coach, are the ones who know their learning communities well and who are best placed to make these decisions.

    Schools are free to choose which and how many competencies to assess. It is our strong recommendation to start small and then add competencies as teachers, learners and whole school communities become more familiar with the approach. Schools starting with 1,2 or 3 competencies have reported successful uptake in their communities. We also suggest that one of the competencies schools start out with be Agency in Learning, as this does seem to be fundamental to the development of all competencies. You can be a good communicator without much agency in your learning, but you cannot demonstrate mastery of agency in learning without strong communication skills. The same can be said of the other competencies as well.

Contact us for enquiries and support  (Email: newmetrics-IS@unimelb.edu.au)