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My problem with the NAPLAN tests

Damien Leith

by Damien Leith

10 Jun 05:03pm

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Filed under: Education, Entertainment, Naplan, Parenting, Schools

56 comments

Where to send your child to school? With my two young sons approaching primary age and a multitude of themed kids’ birthday parties to attend in the lead up, this is the most common topic of conversation amongst all the parents.

Students clear up their classroom after taking NAPLAN tests last month. Pic: Cameron Richardson

Some parents are anxious about it, others take it more in their stride but they’re all talking about it.

At first I wasn’t too interested, in fact, I avoided the conversations. I thought them unnecessary. Yes I want a good school for my kids but it’s not the end of the world if it’s not perfect first time. Growing up I spent many years travelling the globe with my parents, and as such, I attended a vast array of primary and secondary schools. I can honestly say that at no point in my life have I felt that the regular changing of schools impacted adversely on my education. It was exciting, varied and helped to broaden my interests.

I suppose because of that background, the choice of school has never been too important to me. I’ve always been of the opinion that if a school doesn’t suit you, don’t stress it and go someplace else.

Recently though, I’ve joined in on some of the parents’ conversations and started to understand what all the fuss is about.

There are many choices and as some of them pointed out, tools such as the new myschool site to aid the decision process.

I think perhaps that’s where all the fuss and stress begins.

Myschool seems like a great idea – a one stop site that allows a user to search the profiles of thousands of Australian schools. 

I decided to check it out and that’s when I discovered the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). What is this thing and why does it appear to be the most noticeable piece of information on myschool profiles?

The NAPLAN website says that the tests are used to identify whether all students have the literacy and numeracy skills and knowledge that provide the critical foundation for other learning and for their productive and rewarding participation in the community.  I see nothing wrong in that – certainly on a day to day basis, no one will argue that literacy and numeracy skills are essential and it’s vital that our children develop them sufficiently. But why report these results under each schools profile on myschool?

NAPLAN consists of four tests in the domains of Reading, Writing, Language Conventions (Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation) and Numeracy but as we all know, schools teach a great deal more than just this. What about the arts, music, science, history and geography, languages?

Highlighting a schools NAPLAN performances is not an indication of a school’s ability to meet your child’s needs.

Not a wonder there has been outrage about disclosing this information.

Earlier this year the Australian Secondary Principals’ Association (ASPA) released results surveying 659 teaching professionals and the impact of the publication of the myschool NAPLAN data.  The survey discovered many principles were making major changes to accommodate NAPLAN and to improve their schools performance in the tests. More than half reported that they were increasing the classroom time that students devoted specifically to literacy and numeracy and two-thirds reported increased time spent on NAPLAN test preparation.

That can’t be good and not a wonder that many teachers feel that the publication of NAPLAN data reduces the ability of schools to engage students with a broad curriculum. 

Even I will admit that at first glance on the myschool website, without fully understanding the details of NAPLAN, my perception of the data was that of a ranking system for the schools. I’m sure I’m not the only one – life is hectic and quite often we have limited time to read into things.

Aside from pure academics, of equal importance for parents is the need to find a school that suits the child on all other levels. Not all education can be formulaic courtesy of a benchmark system – education must stimulate children to learn and to find confidence to grow with their natural abilities as well as find techniques for them to learn in areas they may require assistance. Ultimately, the aim is to find a balance between education, social skills, sport and communication.

For me, at the end of the day, having visited the myschool website to investigate two schools for my son, I was left feeling less confident than when I started. One school, which I had previously visited and really liked, hadn’t performed as well in NAPLAN compared to another school that I was less keen on.  The fact is that presenting statistical data, whether fully relevant or not, can cast doubt depending on your outlook – one person sees 5% as bad, another sees 1 in 20 as good.

In the end, I’ve gone with my gut, confident that even if I’m wrong (it’s certainly not the end of the world) and if we monitor closely, that we have the liberty and right to change with the best interests of our children in mind.

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56 comments

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    • Bob says:

      05:34pm | 10/06/10

      And then there is not the small matter that the tests “assess” literacy and numeracy in narrow ways e.g. using multiple choice responses for many of the questions means everyone just gets students to get better at m.c. questions - so what about all the other ways to learn and assess? It leads to a focus on getting good at tests rather than good at learning. In the numeracy, the yr 3 test a case in point this year, the literacy required to read the questions was a barrier to the answering of the numeracy questions. The authentic range of great assessment techniques all get a back seat under this whole regime.

      Reply

    • acker says:

      09:42am | 11/06/10

      And then before Naplan there was no benchmarking of student and teacher performance, and parents and often those that appropriated eduction funding among the schools just had to rely on the heavilly spun reports coming from the teachers and principals which were often significiently weighted to how good they had done with the peice of clay they had to work with “the student”

      And then before Naplan and benchmarking all teachers pays were considered to be equal, whether they were teaching a group of kids from a wealthy upper middle class suburb such as in Sydney’s Northern Suburbs or a remote Western NSW school with a high percentage of indigenous students in a lower rural wage town.

      The public school system in Australia is thankfully finally moving to putting the best teachers on higher pay out to the struggling schools where they are rightfully needed.

      From what I see most of the hyperbole about this coming from teachers is from those that dont like the idea that they and their school are going to be put through a process almost every other business and employee takes for granted…benchmarking.

      I also think most of the hyperbole is coming from those teaching in comfortable suburbs and beach side regional communities who sense they will end up getting paid less than teachers teaching in more challenging schools.

    • Amy says:

      06:00pm | 10/06/10

      The biggest problem with the myschool website (and you’ll figure this out when you try to enrol your kids, Damien) is that it insinuates that you can actually do something with the information it presents.  You can’t. 

      For example: Tracy lives in the Sutherland Shire of Sydney.  Tracy has a 4 year old and wants to enrol her into the best school in the area.  Tracy goes on to the Myschool website and discovers that her local school, Miranda Public School, is a particularly lowly ranked school, but a much better school in the area is Gymea Bay Public School and it’s only 5 minutes away.  So Tracy goes along to Gymea Bay Public School and asks for an enrolment form and an interview with the Principal.  She is denied.  Why?  Gymea Bay Public School is full, and Tracy, despite living so close is not in the designated catchment area.  What can Tracy do?  One of two things.  She can pray that the Kindergarten year is small and she gets in on Out of Area Application or she can move 5 minutes down the road.  What exactly has Myschool done to help Tracy?  Nothing.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      08:07pm | 10/06/10

      Not so sure.  If Tracy decides to enrol her child in Miranda, she knows it may not be the best school, so she’s prepared to provide extra help to her child, lobby the local education authorities, lean on the teachers at the school to improve things.  She’ll be there for parent-teacher meetings.  She’ll keep an eye on things. She’s got information she can use to press for changes. 

      Before the website, she would happily have enrolled her child, and not known the school was substandard until her child finished year 6 or 7 and couldn’t add up a column of figures or read a book. 

      Information is never wasted. Tracy and her friends can use it to force changes.  That’s what Myschool will do for all the Tracys.

    • phil says:

      08:19pm | 10/06/10

      But NAPLAN is just as much about identifying schools which need extra support.  So in the long run Miranda Public School benefits too.

      Gymea bay school would be full and Tracy would still fall outside the catchment area without NAPLAN.  Whats your point?

    • iansand says:

      07:13am | 11/06/10

      Phil - Identifying poorly performing schools is important.  Identification does not require publication.  That is the problem.  It is a very narrow means of identifying the quality of a school, but that is how it is used by the press.

    • Amy says:

      05:06pm | 11/06/10

      My point, Phil, is that the website is being touted as a way to empower parents, and give them the choice of where to enrol their child.  The reality is, this information should not be used that way in the first place, and if it is it’s not helpful anyway.  Tracy gets nothing but a vote of poor confidence in her child’s school from before her kid even begins there.  That’s not helpful to anyone, the parents, who think their school is substandard, the teachers who are being treated like they work at a substandard school and most importantly, the kids, who is to say they won’t be judged on the school they end up attending? 

      The only thing NAPLAN results should be used for is for the individual evaluation of students and their improvement or decline in Key Learning Areas over their Primary and High School lives.

    • Greg says:

      10:43pm | 22/06/10

      Sometimes there can be just too much information or wrongful analysis too and I wonder how the leaning on teachers to improve may fare.
      For starters, will not NAPLAN just be a measure of performance of a crop of kids at one stage and who is to say that over a 5 - 10 year period you could not get a significant variation with kids from local pool going through the same environment.
      So in any particular year you could have NAPLAN saying one school is ahead of another and yet have the most dedicated teachers at both schools.
      This testing is a bit like like Julia’s laptops and just what they may be like from one year to the next and she crowed about how 2 million hits or whatever must make it a success!
      There was a time when kids just went to school and learnt and about the only time I ever recall anything having to be done at what would have been regarded as probably a tougher school was when there was an extreme shortage of Maths teachers and we got Dopey….... the music teacher in first half of year for maths.
      Of 100 kids he taught, 2 passed and my mum was one of a few who may have made a trip down to see the headmaster.
      We got a proper maths teacher for about 4 out of 6 periods and Dopey for 2 of revision and come final exams only 2 of the same 100 failed.
      These days they probably do not even bother on teaching too much maths.

    • iansand says:

      06:22pm | 10/06/10

      NAPLAN does not look at the raw material on which the teachers work.  It does not allow for schools that teach to the test to the cost of other aspects of education.  It is a brutal, insensitive tool.

      Reply

    • PaulD says:

      07:21pm | 10/06/10

      Put very simply: as a Secondary teacher I am very unconcerned with what is taught at primary School, as long as they can read, write and calculate at a High School level when they arrive with me, and have a love of learning.

      If they cannot, the primary school has failed.

      I don’t care whether they’ve made great cultural gains studying halloween or witchcraft, I don’t care if they studied some idiot who trudged off unprepared to die in the Outback - if they can’t do the basics they cannot succeed academically, and they generally struggle to achieve at even a basic level. i resent the implication as a Degree-qualified Scientist that I need to teach the basic literacy that 7 years of Primary specialists failed to do.

      NAPLAN is a uniform test of that year group across the country. If that doesn’t tell you something of your local school’s ability to do the basics, you’ve already lost the plot. Don’t swallow the rubbish from the pseudo-communists in the Union - all we need to know is which schools are doing what Primary schools are expected to do.

      What is truly scary is how many current High School students see success as a menial job at the lowest pay scale. Unfortunately, given their attitude and lack of ability, for many it’s their only choice.

      Unless we see a real change in the rubbish taught in primary, and a massive restructuring of standards, we are going to continue to see a degradation in the standard of education in Australia.

      There is only so much you can do with the material we see arriving in High Schools.

      Reply

    • Anne71 says:

      08:21am | 11/06/10

      @PaulD, you make a very good point. My sister lectures in journalism at University and some years they have actually had to put the course on hold while they spend two weeks teaching the wannabe communicators how to put a sentence together. They literally do not have a clue about grammar, punctuation, spelling etc. So what the hell are they learning at primary school? And I say primary school because it should not be up to high school to teach kids how to write. Perhaps it’s time they got rid of all this touchy-feely, I’m OK-you’re OK self esteem boosting crap that passes for education at the moment and actually started teaching children the basics - and check regularly to make sure they’re learning it. Yes, it might mean the poor little darlings might *gasp!* fail an exam or two. They’ll live. And they’ll learn pretty quickly that if they want to succeed at something, they will have to put a bit of effort into it. Just like in real life.

    • Greg says:

      10:48pm | 22/06/10

      Sounds to me Anne as if all this access to computers at too early an age is not the latest and greatest it is cracked up to be.

    • Realist says:

      07:24pm | 10/06/10

      With all difficulties it is still a relevant tool and parents can have a look and dismiss it outright or decide to use it. In the end it is always the parents decision and as such each and every available tool will help.

      Reply

    • BTS says:

      07:38pm | 10/06/10

      My problem with the NAPLAN is I can’t get the answer to question 8?

      Reply

    • tren says:

      09:39am | 11/06/10

      I had to take the keys out of my keyboard and line up the right shapes to know which question you were talking about

    • Vicki PS says:

      07:44pm | 10/06/10

      I do not see what is to be gained by blaming NAPLAN and mychool for not being what they never claimed to be.  NAPLAN is a tool for establishing performance baselines in the critical foundation areas of education, literacy and numeracy.  The tests are not and never were intended as a global assessment of educational outcomes: complaining that they are not is the weakest kind of straw man argument.

      Complaints about schools that ‘teach to the test’ are more a reflection of the competence and ethics of the school administration and the relevant education authority than of NAPLAN itself.  Concerns that NAPLAN is a narrow tool are irrelevant when it comes to considering individual outcomes, as NAPLAN does not replace the normal methods and processes of teaching and assessment.

      Where NAPLAN and myschool are invaluable is in identifying what is already intuitively obvious with regard to, for example, all schools in a particular district, or government vs. non-government schools.  For instance, in my education district, ALL state schools are performing below the national average, and there is a massive difference in the socioeconomic profiles of the non-government vs. government schools.  This is far from reassuring to parents who have no choice about where their children go to school, but is nevertheless information that should be readily available.

      Reply

    • Mum of lots says:

      08:00pm | 10/06/10

      Teacher’s ought not or need to teach to the test. Were children doing the work NAPLAN shouldn’t be a problem. Where this falls down is with certain students, or certain schools in certain areas. My children attend a school in a lower socio-economic area yet they perform well. Good family support, willing to learn, to them NAPLAN isn’t even a blip in the radar. However, teachers are forced to spend time getting other children up to the point of average. Children who’s parents don’t much care if they can read or write, or who are so stressed over life/money or what have you that they have no time, or at least feel they have no time for involvement. Or bogan (and I hate the word and its connotations) families who only care if little john or jill isn’t bugging them at all. Sadly teachers aren’t equipped to deal with a child’s family or background, their job is to teach. Personally I don’t think NAPLAN is of itself evil but the pressure on teachers who feel they have to coach children to average is very, very wrong. In order for NAPLAN to be an accurate test of a child’s abilities there should be no testing for teaching, a child ought sit the tests on what he/she knows. It should be the child’s family judging what to do with the results. Not a ludicrous website suggesting that one school performs better at test level only - not across day to day teaching. 

      According to NAPLAN one of my children is extremely bright, mostly true but more truthful is that she performs well under exam conditions. Her memory is good and stores information well, but not always with understanding. Another does well on a daily basis but freezes at the thought of tests or exams. All it tells me is that one needs help in learning how to deal with exam situations and that another is pretty cocky and often lucky.

      Reply

    • tren says:

      09:42am | 11/06/10

      Your comment is tantamount to saying poor kids are stupid. “Where this falls down is with certain students, or certain schools in certain areas.” Its the teachers and the support that lift the bell curve at schools as you more accurately point out later, not the “socio economics”. The focus needs to be on the quality of teaching at school and at home, not the ability to pass tests

    • Greg says:

      10:57pm | 22/06/10

      I think what many kids mum is saying tren is that there can be very different student attitudes that can be influenced by the environment in which they live and do not for one minute think that we are all born with the same brain cells for learning.
      Everyone will have different aptitudes and that’s whay some kids will go onto excel at being craftspeople of one type or another and others may end up as scientists or surgeons.
      That type of apitude together with attitude will be displayed in earlier years on how well some students will perform in some subjects as against others.
      Now if you want to call that as some kids being more stupid than others, then that’s your call.
      Teachers can only do so much, just as a coach can with a sports team.

    • Leeroy says:

      09:19pm | 10/06/10

      In an article about Literacy and Numeracy, the line
      “The survey discovered many principles were making major changes to accommodate NAPLAN and to improve their schools performance in the tests. “
      goes to show that anyone can make a Literacy error in this day and age and children are just children…...Principals not principals Mr Leith.

      A great article though on the reality of the situation.

      Reply

    • Sue says:

      09:57pm | 10/06/10

      Agree with you Damien. People are way over-thinking this whole thing. Just send them to school, be involved and you won’t go wrong. If the school turns out not to suit move them. Biggest thing you can do is be involved. NAPLAN means diddly-squat IMO.

      Reply

    • Theycallmebruce says:

      10:56pm | 10/06/10

      The MySchool website is part of the government’s commitment to being open and transparent. The tests are used to assist in determining funding for schools. Yes the site can be viewed as a ‘league table’ and it does not extend to cover other, in my view, equally important aspects of education to allow it to be used as an effective tool for viewing overall school performance, but it is a start.

      You can complain all you want about the site, but it is about time someone did something to address literacy and numeracy standards. Look at all the focus being placed on literacy and numeracy now! Any focus on these two key schooling aspects can only be good in my view.

      I, like Damien mentions, believe individual student performance is linked to ‘fit’ in a particular school anyway - and parental involvement in their child’s education - and that extends to include life education.

      Reply

    • eamz says:

      11:49pm | 10/06/10

      NAPLAN results don’t show student progress or improvement, they are simply numbers and grades. If a school and students improve their results and progress but don’t get the best NAPLAN results, does that mean the school/students are bad? Certainly not, quite the opposite actually, but with just raw information as such on a website many people are mislead and misinformed unfortunately.

      Reply

    • Dr Mark says:

      11:50pm | 10/06/10

      NAPLAN forces schools to raise their standard. It keeps them honest. If what they are doing results in a mediocre level, they’ll just have to change and raise their game.

      Reply

    • Dr Mark says:

      12:06am | 11/06/10

      Tell the students of Yarrabah state school, far North Queensland, that the NAPLAN doesnt work! In 2008, their Naplan yielded 17.5 per cent of students at or above the year 3 national minimum standard, and after getting their act together, in 2009, it rose to 61.3 per cent, the best improvement in Qld. Clearly the NAPLAN testing forced them to raise their standard!

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      07:16am | 11/06/10

      Or the school decided to teach the kids how to pass NAPLAN at the cost of their education.

    • Jolanda says:

      08:55am | 11/06/10

      Here is the thing if the Naplan test is designed to test for basic skills then it is the schools job to ensure that the students know these basis skills as they are the building blocks.  Nothing wrong with teaching to the test if the skills that are being taught are required and important and especially when other children are being taught.

      Remember Education is all about competition and your child will have to compete in academic competition for access to information and higher level education.  If you child has not got the basic skills they will not be able to compete.  Actually these days even with basic skills they may not be able to compete as the amount of coaching and tutoring that is going on outside of school makes the whole set up unfair.

      Results are often more a picture of the amount of external learning a child is involved in - rather than the teaching going on in the school.

      Education – Keeping them Honest
      http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/

    • Dan says:

      03:44pm | 13/06/10

      That’s exactly why you should send your kids to the schools that perform badly.  If a school has a good NAPLAN score, you can be pretty sure that they’ll be smug, self-satisfied and complacent.  Good score = keep away.  Bad score = motivated school.

    • Julian Thomas says:

      01:57am | 11/06/10

      Your comment: I remember in year 7 marking the year 6 papers, the teacher, ceramics, made us do her job

      Reply

    • Julian Thomas says:

      02:00am | 11/06/10

      damien so the next time the girl at the corner shop (hell does that even exist today) gives me the wrong product and charges too much, I can blame your arts grants bs, on her inability to read, write comprehend and not add up, guess you can always blame the parents yawn!!~

      Reply

    • Enlightened, Educated Dad says:

      02:32am | 11/06/10

      Another thing to keep in mind, Damien, is that these tests are entirely relative, but only for the year in which they were undertaken. There is no year-on-year comparison available with the NAPLAN tests. Also, they are a very ‘shonky’ basis for determining the true level of ability in the key areas (numeracy and literacy), as they only show how the students have performed in the tests (for which they are officially given practice opportunities) , rather than a more comprehensive indication that would be available if a sample of their regular work were assessed throughout the year. The BEST, most comprehensive indicator for a student’s ability - and indeed that of a school - is to talk to the staff at the school. That, after all, is the very PURPOSE of Parent-Teacher interviews!

      Reply

    • Jolanda says:

      08:12am | 11/06/10

      Here is the thing.  It is not necessary for your child to be in a school where everybody is a high acheiver but certainly if you have a bright child it is important for your child to be amongst like minded peers.  Children learn from each other as well as the teacher. 

      There is also the issue that if you have a child who is bright you may wish to persue Opportunity Class or Selective School enrollment .  In order to do this your child must compete in a fierce academic competition.  The manner that the scores are scaled and moderated means that the performance of the other students who sat the test in your year influences your mark.  So the child from the school where they are peforming higher will have the advantage.

      There is also the issue that you have to be very careful when you complain about the teaching and performance of public schools.  I made that mistake many years ago and my children and family have paid the price.

      Education – Keeping them Honest
      http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/

      Reply

    • Carol says:

      08:15am | 11/06/10

      NAPLAN is a tool to make decisions but it can only be used in a very narrow way by people who actually understand the data.  The true measure of a school is the culture and values it encourages.  This comes from a positive relationship between staff and students as people who care for and respect one another.  If this is in place then success (be it academic or otherwise) will flow from there. Just as we shouldn’t judge a child’s worth on their ability to achieve in a test, neither should we judge a school’s.  Don’t get me wrong, as a secondary teacher I know that literacy and numeracy is very important and I don’t mean to undermine the need for schools to maximise opportunities to develop these skills - just not at the cost of a broader curriculum and the ethos of the school.

      Reply

    • McCackie says:

      08:32am | 11/06/10

      Publication is essential with identification. Without the former the latter is corrupted, to think otherwise is to believe that Teachers are saintly and that they only care for students.  Hah. Get real, in the dark are always dirty dealings.

      Reply

    • Father a Few says:

      10:39am | 11/06/10

      As a father of four who takes a very keen interest in my childrens education I have found the NAPLAN test to be a breath of fresh air. A wonderful motivator for students, teachers, school principals, parents and the community.

      We all perform better with feedback and accountability.

      No test is perfect just like students, teachers and schools ( of course parents are) but it does provide some sort of bench mark, some gauge of performance and ID any areas that need attention. Of course you will always need to take into account additional factors that will suit your child. This will require you to go and visit the school and talk to the teachers and parents. I my particular case I have a child with some learning difficulties and needed to find a school that was not full of high achievers that would have left my child in a situation impossible to cope with. I needed a middle of the road school that took a broader spectrum focus. NAPLAN helped.

      Reply

    • jack says:

      12:44pm | 11/06/10

      not sure I can see much wrong with schools spending a bit more time on literacy and numeracy

      Reply

    • jim says:

      01:57pm | 11/06/10

      Lets put this into perspective. I finished HSC in 2000 and on my schoolies I travelled back to Hong Kong, shocked to see my 3 unit Yr 12 mathematics was being taught to children 4 years younger than me at that time. ie, my cousin was learning maths that I just sat an exam for.

      So Australians are behind in Maths, good Naplan would help.

      On the other hand, I failed the stupid English test set by Americans. I have a full Australian accent and I refuse to spell colour as color. The American Grammar is different, spelling is different, Jargon is different… and no American English is not dominant.

      NAPLAN needs to preserve real english or Australian english.

      And what better way to do that, than to have schools teach children on the culture of Australia. The foundations and traditions of Australia. Ie, church, sports, history…etc

      Reply

    • dw says:

      02:14pm | 11/06/10

      I think NAPLAN benchmark will never be reliable if ‘lower’ students are actively encouraged not to sit the exam at certain schools. Here is an example from a school with the motto: “You don’t have to be the best, just do your best”.

      I overheard a conversation about the NAPLAN test between teacher at the school and a student. The teacher says to the student “But your best isn’t good enough”.

      What’s more important - the school’s rating on myschools or the well being of the students in the school?

      Reply

    • Michelle says:

      08:36pm | 12/06/10

      I’d be more worried about this: “... don’t forget Rudd’s new national school curriculum. Every subject in this curriculum has to be designed with three “cross-curriculum dimensions” in mind: Australia’s place in the Asia Pacific, Aborigines and sustainable living. The idea that Australia’s place is within the Asia Pacific is going to be integrated into topic selection and points for analysis in every subject area during every child’s primary and secondary education. What does that say about the agenda of the Rudd Labor Government?”
      http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2010/05/has-michelle-got-it.html

      That’s a fair whack of brain-washing. Sustainable living sounded OK until I realised it would be global warming and “the science is settled”. But the worst is Rudd brain-washing kids with a regional Asia-Pacific Union identity instead of a national identity. Rudd is a threat to national sovereignty . He can’t sell his open-borders EU-style Asia-Pacific Union to adults, so he goes to the kids. What gall. Home schooling looks better every day.

      Reply

    • cam says:

      11:28pm | 12/06/10

      Is there a test that measures how happy kids are at their school ?
      I’d go for the school with high marks in that test.

      Reply

    • Sharm says:

      02:38pm | 22/06/10

      Having migrated to Australia, the NAPLAN was invaluable when short listing a school for our son. It was a point of comparison among the schools—supplemented by school visits and checking on the school facilities as well as school culture. The only alternative is to talk to parents or check the internet—both sources often think that the school closest to them or where their kid is attending is great but its a very subjective decision based on individual impressions. Here, you have a tool for comparision combined with your own impressions. Coming from an Asian country where testing is the norm, I dont see any huge harm in benchmarking and testing through competitive exams (drawbacks in that system, with too much emphasis on test results only). But at the end of the day, along with parental support, a school must ensure that the child is taught to ensure they meet the basic requirements for education.

      Reply

    • Kim says:

      03:04pm | 11/10/10

      You’re all assuming that the tests are well-constructed and test worthwhile focus areas - which is definitely not the case. Thus, schools that are teaching to the test are focussing on the wrong areas and are employing very poor pedagogical practices.

      As for secondary school teachers who think they have nothing to teach other than the content of their subject area - you clearly need to redo your uni degree and learn about the developmental nature of literacy and numeracy acquisition. And how someone that close-minded can learn about individual learning differences and rates, I really don’t know - I can only recommend you change jobs.

      If you think socio-economics have very little to do with academic attainment - you are kidding yourself. A rudimentary investigation into this area will quickly reveal to anyone that it is the single biggest factor that influences not only academic achievement, but also career prospects.

      Sadly, like all jobs, there are good teachers and bad teachers and they are at all schools. One year your child will strike it lucky, the next they probably won’t. But this is not only limited to schools - I challenge you to name a single profession where this is not the case.

      Reply

    • Hitcliff Thompson says:

      07:08pm | 29/04/11

      I think the naplan test is a good indicator for the school and parents to be able to identify students who may be slipping through the system (and it’s not just my opinion according to the number of articles on the topic I found by http://bytesland.com search). Unfortunately in my experience I have a 16 year old step daughter who was “red flagged” as a child who was well beneath the academic level. The school did nothing to try to help improve her education. She doesn’t do school work because she cant understand the basics. Im sure this didnt happen over night. My question is does the naplan testing benefit the child? My stepdaughter is in year 10 and has travelled through school with no one noticing that she cannot spell simple words such as like and again or do simple maths such as 8-2. She will exit year 10 this year unable to fill out a job application. I wonder if the inclusion of subjects such as Japanese and Drama into a childs education has had an impact on this problem. Maybe school should go back to being about maths, english, science and history. Leave the other subjects for TAFE and Uni. I wonder whether the naplan tests indicate a deterioration in childrens level of education.

      Reply

    • MollyMiller says:

      07:45am | 25/08/11

      Every one knows that today’s life is not very cheap, however people need cash for various issues and not every man earns enough cash. Thence to get quick mortgage loans or small business loan would be good way out.

      Reply

    • deas says:

      07:01am | 30/08/11

      That type of apitude together with attitude will be displayed in earlier years on how well some students will perform in some subjects as against others.  which they live and do not for one minute think that we are all born with the same brain cells for learning.electric cigarette

      Everyone will have different aptitudes and that’s whay some kids will go onto excel at being craftspeople of one type or another and others may end up as scientists or surgeons.

      Reply

    • DROG says:

      07:46pm | 06/09/11

      . I’ve always been of the Scrap Metal opinion that if a school doesn’t suit you, don’t stress it and go someplace else.

      Reply

    • vija says:

      07:11pm | 15/09/11

      If a school has a good NAPLAN score, best baby car seatyou can be pretty sure that they’ll be smug, self-satisfied and complacent.  Good score = keep away.  Bad score = motivated school.

      Reply

    • daddu says:

      03:58pm | 27/09/11

      who takes a very keen interest in my childrens education I have found the NAPLAN test to be a breath of fresh air. A wonderful motivator for students, teachers, school principals, parents and the community.digital wireless headphones

      Reply

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      04:27pm | 18/10/11

      I am happy to find this post very useful for me, as it contains lot of information. I always prefer to read the quality content and this thing I found in you post. Thanks for sharing.treat hepatitis b

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    • jacky says:

      06:53am | 24/10/11

      Maybe school should go back to being about maths, english, science and history. Leave the other subjects for TAFE and Uni. I wonder whether the naplan tests indicate a deterioration in childrens level of education.Print spooler service is not running

      Reply

    • poppva1 says:

      03:18pm | 25/10/11

      I cannot begin to imagine what the world would be like without the internet going crazy and trying to sell merchandise like its going out of style. Give me a break people. cake boxes || custom boxes

      Reply

    • henruy says:

      07:08pm | 24/11/11

      Maybe, if we watch cautiously, now not only twitter. As a matter of fact, just about all social networking sites are an even tool to grow to be part of democracy.  how to find a cosigner

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