NCCD basics
NCCD for new teachers: your first year, what to log and what to ask
New to the NCCD? What a first-year teacher needs to know: what the collection is, what to log each week, how the 10 weeks work and what to ask your coordinator.
Updated 25 September 20268 min read
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The NCCD, the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability, is an annual national count of the students who receive adjustments at school because of disability. Every Australian school takes part, and the data is used to calculate the student with disability loading. For the whole collection, see what the NCCD is and how it works. This article covers your part of it.
Your first NCCD year can still feel like another deadline hiding in a busy term. You are learning names, routines, behaviour plans and the curriculum, and then someone mentions NCCD evidence in a staff meeting as if everyone already knows what it means.
This is the orientation nobody hands you in week one, and the practical part that comes after it: what to log, when, and what to ask. The short version: the NCCD is a record of support you are probably already giving. Your job is to give it, and to write it down while it is fresh.
What the NCCD asks of you
You do not need to become an NCCD specialist. Your part is to notice a student's need, make reasonable adjustments, consult where appropriate, and keep enough of a record to show the support happened. Your coordinator or inclusion lead confirms categories and levels and looks after reporting.
The official NCCD Quick Guide sets the school's process out in eight steps, from preparing the school community to submitting the data. Most of a classroom teacher's part sits in two of them: providing adjustments (step 2) and recording evidence of them (step 5). What you record then informs steps 3 and 4, where the school decides the level of adjustment and the category of disability. The NCCD Quick Guide's eight steps, on one page, shows where yours fit.
For each student, it comes down to four practical questions:
- Does the student have a disability-related need that affects their access to learning?
- What adjustments are you making because of it?
- How often, and how intensively, are you making them?
- Is there evidence that shows all of this?
If you have changed a task, chunked instructions, given extra processing time, spoken with a parent or checked whether a strategy worked, you may already be creating that evidence.
Categories, levels and the diagnosis you may not have
The NCCD sits on top of obligations schools already have. Under the Disability Standards for Education 2005, schools make reasonable adjustments so students with disability can take part in education on the same basis as their peers, and consult the student or their family about them.
For each included student, the school records two things:
- A category of disability: physical, cognitive, sensory or social/emotional. The category is the area that mainly drives the adjustments, not the name of a diagnosis, and the NCCD does not assign diagnoses to categories. NCCD categories of disability, with examples, covers questions such as whether ADHD is cognitive or social/emotional.
- A level of adjustment: quality differentiated teaching practice (QDTP), supplementary, substantial or extensive.
The level is set by how often and how intensively the student is supported, not by how serious a diagnosis sounds. Two students with the same diagnosis can sit at different levels. Only supplementary, substantial and extensive attract the funding loading; QDTP is recorded but attracts none (see what QDTP means, and where Supplementary starts). NCCD levels of adjustment, with examples, explains how the four differ.
A diagnosis is not required. Where there is no diagnostic report, disability can be imputed: the school team judges that it exists, on reasonable grounds and with evidence, after consulting the student or their associate. From 2026 the team also confirms the adjustments are due to disability, not academic performance, learning difficulties or external factors. Your coordinator makes that call with you, so tell them what you are seeing. Imputed disability, explained sets out the grounds and what to record.
What to log during the term
You do not need to log every interaction. Start with the moments you actively changed something: a scaffold, extra processing time, a quiet space, a visual schedule, changed assessment conditions, a parent conversation, a check-in with learning support. For more, see examples of NCCD adjustments by functional area, with a log entry that counts for each area.
Across a student's file, the evidence should cover four areas, which Superadjust calls the four pillars:
- Need: the functional barrier at school, not only the diagnosis.
- Consultation: talking it through with the student, family or specialists.
- Adjustments: what you changed, and when.
- Monitoring: whether it worked, and what you did next.
| Weak | Stronger |
|---|---|
| Extra time given. | Gave Oliver 10 extra minutes on the written task because his processing speed slows how he organises a response. He finished all three questions. |
| Student needed help in maths. | Used concrete materials and a worked example in fractions because Aisha has difficulty holding multi-step instructions. She finished four questions on her own after modelling. |
| Parent contacted. | Spoke with Ruby's mum about her anxiety before oral presentations. Agreed she will present to me first, then to a small group. |
| ADHD. | Chunked the writing task into three steps with a visual checklist so Zoe could stay with it. She finished two steps before the bell. |
Short is fine. Vague is the problem. When you are not sure what to write, use need, adjustment, context and result. The Evidence centre has a full guide to how to write a note in class.
During the Year 5 reading task, gave Oliver an audio version and previewed the vocabulary because he has difficulty decoding unfamiliar text. He answered the comprehension questions with one prompt.
You do not have to create new paperwork for the NCCD. Schools are not required to create new or additional evidence: adjusted lesson plans, annotated work samples, parent emails, learning plans and progress notes all count when they show the support clearly.
The 10 weeks and Census Day
To include a student, the school needs documented evidence of adjustments for at least 10 weeks of school education in the 12 months before Census Day. The weeks are cumulative: they can be non-consecutive and split across terms, and any amount of adjustment in a school week counts as a week. The exception is Extensive, where adjustments must be in place at all times over consecutive weeks. The 10-week rule in full covers what counts as a week.
Census Day is the first Friday in August, unless the Minister decides otherwise. The next one is expected on Friday 6 August 2027, though the date has not been officially published. Your coordinator handles the reporting. Your part happens across the year, which is why the weeks before Census Day go badly when evidence is left until then.
Take a Year 7 student with ADHD who struggles to start extended writing. Across the term, the teacher gives a planning template, short work blocks and a check-in at the start of each paragraph. By the end, the file might hold:
- a dated note from the first writing lesson
- the planning template itself
- a note from a parent meeting about starting tasks at home
- a work sample showing more of the task finished
- a short review note after several weeks
That covers need, adjustment, consultation and monitoring, and gives the coordinator something concrete to review.
A weekly habit, and the mistakes it prevents
A weekly rhythm keeps it small:
- In the lesson: log one adjustment for a student while it is accurate.
- After parent contact: save a short note of what was discussed and agreed.
- At the end of the week: add one review note for students on regular support.
- At the end of term: check with your coordinator which students look thin.
| Mistake | Better habit |
|---|---|
| Recording the diagnosis but not the adjustment | Show how the disability affects learning, and what you did |
| Waiting until Census Day to log anything | Record small notes during the term |
| Counting whole-class differentiation as an adjustment | Say why this student needed it |
| Only saving formal documents | Keep lesson notes, work samples and emails alongside them |
| Logging support without review | Add a short monitoring note after a few weeks |
| Choosing a level by how hard you worked | Let how often and how intensively you supported the student decide, with your coordinator |
A notebook, a shared document or your school's system all work if the notes are dated and easy to find. If you want the habit to be quick, see how NCCD evidence logging for teachers works in Superadjust.
One rule covers most of it: write for the colleague who was not in the room.
Six questions for your coordinator
Ask early, especially if you teach students with learning plans, behaviour plans, a diagnosis or regular classroom adjustments. You do not need to know every rule; you do need to know what your school expects you to record.
- Which students in my classes are being considered for the NCCD?
- What evidence already exists for each of them?
- Which gaps should I help close?
- How should I record consultation with parents, carers or students?
- What does our school consider enough evidence for each level?
- Who reviews my evidence before decisions are made?
If you are unsure whether something counts, ask before deleting or rewriting it. A rough lesson note or an annotated work sample may be more useful than you think.