VCE SACs Explained: How VCAA School-Assessed Coursework Works

A VCE SAC (school-assessed coursework) is a set of tasks your school sets and marks to assess the outcomes of a Unit 3 and 4 study. VCAA collects your school's SAC scores, statistically moderates them against how the same students perform in the external exam, and combines them with the exam to produce your study score. How much SACs count depends on the study, from 40% to 60% of the study score in the studies listed below.

This guide describes the VCE Administrative Handbook 2026, which applies to students completing Units 3 and 4 in 2026. SACs that count toward a study score sit in Units 3 and 4. For how the study score is calculated, see VCE study score: how it is calculated. For past exams and marked questions in each study, start from VCE past exams (VCAA).

What is a SAC in VCE?

VCAA defines school-assessed coursework as a set of tasks that assess each student's level of achievement in the Units 3 and 4 outcomes in the study design. The study design specifies the tasks. Your school writes them, sets the conditions, marks them and gives VCAA a score for each component of coursework. VCAA then adds those scores into a single total for each student.

There are two forms of school-based assessment in Units 3 and 4. SACs are in nearly every study. School-assessed tasks (SATs) are different: VCAA sets them to assess specific practical skills and knowledge, and teachers rate the work against criteria VCAA publishes. SATs apply to studies such as Art, Media, Product Design and Technologies and Visual Communication Design. The studies on this page use SACs.

Every VCE study except the Vocational Major studies has three graded assessments in its Units 3 and 4 sequence, and at least one is external. In most of the studies below, two of the three are SACs and the third is the exam.

How much do SACs count in each VCE study?

The share depends on the study. VCAA's 2026 assessment summary gives these contributions to the study score.

So "SACs are half your study score" is accurate for many studies and wrong for the others. In the three mathematics studies above, SACs are 40% in total, and they form one graded assessment across both units. In Physics the Unit 3 SAC counts more than the Unit 4 SAC, and in Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and Physical Education it is the other way round. Food Studies is the highest in this list at 60%. VCAA's summary covers every other study, so look up yours there.

Who marks a SAC, and are the scores final?

Your school is responsible for the initial assessment, which is the teacher's judgement of how each student performed on the tasks the study design specifies. VCAA says schools should not apply any extra ranking process after the initial results are calculated.

You are given your initial SAC scores, and teachers must tell students that those scores may change after statistical moderation. Moderation changes the number, not your standing in your school. See the next section.

What does moderation do to my SAC score?

Schools set different tasks, so VCAA aligns each school's SAC scores in a study with the distribution of the external scores for the same group of students. The external score is based on exam results. VCAA says moderation does not change the relative performance of students within the group. In a few studies the GAT is also used in moderation, with the exam scores remaining the main reference.

What this means for you:

• Your rank in your school is what your SAC performance decides. The score that rank converts to depends on how your school's cohort does in the exam.
• A raw mark does not travel between schools. Each school's scores are aligned to its own students' exam distribution, so the same raw SAC mark at two schools can end up as different moderated scores. VCAA also treats all of a school's students in a study as one group, not as separate classes, so your rank is across the whole school cohort.
• The exam matters for SAC scores too. A strong exam from your school's cohort lifts the scores its SAC ranks convert to, and a weak one lowers them.

The worked steps, the study score scale and the full moderation wording are in VCE study score: how it is calculated.

What are the VCAA rules on authentication and AI?

Principals administer VCAA's rules for assessment, and one of them is that all work you submit for assessment must be your own. According to the handbook, you must not plagiarise or cheat, you must acknowledge all resources you use, and you must not submit the same piece of work for assessment in more than one study or more than once within a study.

The handbook separates acceptable from unacceptable help:

• Acceptable: using ideas or material from other sources that you have transformed and used in a new context, and prompting or general advice that leads you to refine or correct your own work.
• Unacceptable: copying another person's work (including your teacher's), copying sample answers, and corrections that someone else, including your teacher, dictates.

On generative AI, the handbook says unattributed or disallowed use in assessment may be a breach of academic integrity, and that it must be investigated under your school's policy. What counts as allowed for a given task is set by your school and the task instructions, so check before you use any tool.

What happens if I miss a SAC or a deadline?

VCAA's handbook says teachers should give students assessment dates in advance. Extensions can be granted for a class or an individual, but never into the next academic year.

Your result for a unit is S (satisfactory) or N (not satisfactory), and it is decided separately from your level of achievement on SACs. You can receive an N if you fail to meet a school deadline (including time granted by an extension or Special Provision), if the work cannot be authenticated (the handbook gives lack of attendance as an example), or if there is a substantial breach of the VCAA's or school's rules. A decision about satisfactory completion must not be based on a single school-based assessment.

If you get an N for an outcome, the school must give you the opportunity to redeem it. That work does not need to be done under test conditions. You may not resubmit a task to improve an initial score, and a graded assessment that was not submitted is reported as NA. Whether and how a missed SAC is rescheduled is set out in your school's own assessment policy, so tell your VCE coordinator as early as you can.

Do Units 1 and 2 have SACs that count?

Not in the same way. The handbook describes the school-based assessments that contribute to a study score and an ATAR in the context of Units 3 and 4. For Units 1 and 2 the unit result is S or N, decided by your teacher's holistic judgement of your set work and assessment tasks against the unit's outcomes.

Does the GAT affect my SACs?

The GAT is not a SAC. VCAA says GAT results are used to check that external and school-based assessments have been accurately and fairly assessed, and in a few studies GAT results are part of the external score used in moderation. The GAT brochure also says there is no need to study for it. Students enrolled in one or more VCE or scored VCE VET Unit 3 and 4 sequences are expected to sit Sections A and B. The 2026 GAT was held on Tuesday 16 June.

How should you prepare for a SAC?

Your school writes the SAC, so the first job is to find out from your teacher what the task is, which outcomes it covers and how long you have. The study design sets the task types, and they differ between studies. The steps below work for a written, timed SAC.

1. Work out the outcomes and the format. Ask which topics the SAC covers and whether it is timed, in class, with or without notes, and with or without a calculator.
2. Practise on exam-style questions for those topics. VCAA's exam questions follow the same study design as your SAC, so past questions on your topics are good material for content and technique. Do them by topic rather than as full papers, and check with your teacher where your SAC differs in style from an exam.
3. Read the exam report for each paper you attempt. VCAA's external assessment reports show how students answered each question and what the assessors expected. Advice that recurs across VCAA's reports includes answering the question actually asked, responding to the command term, and (in mathematics) showing working. See how to prepare for VCE exams for the full picture.
4. Simulate the conditions. Set a timer, close your notes and write the response by hand if the SAC is on paper. Then mark your attempt against the report.
5. Spend the last days on the questions you lost marks on. Redo those rather than rereading everything.

Practise with AusGrader:

• Marked past-paper questions by topic for the VCE studies on VCE past exams (VCAA), with AI marking and feedback.

Common mistakes about SACs