The Compulsory Testing regime across Australian Schools

It is going to take me longer than I thought to edit Criterion #5 so here is an insight into the compulsory testing regime that exists across Australian Schools.  What I will offer in this post will eventually become a key Appendix to my book on School Effectiveness.

This blue section coloured as such on 22/7/2017 to become the first Appendix and to be referred to at the fist mention of NAPLAN in Tom’s book.

Tom was comfortable with schools being committed to the annual May NAPLAN (National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy) tests for students in Years 3,5,7 and 9 recognising that these tests covered skills in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and numeracy. He was also aware of the annual National Assessment Program (NAP) sample assessments occurring on a rolling basis such that in 2013, civics and citizenship was tested and in 2014 ICT literacy was tested with Science literacy to be tested in 2015. The NAP sample assessments were administered to a small sample of randomly selected schools.  Tom was also aware that as part of NAP Australia participated in international sample assessments two of which covered Mathematics and Science and Reading Literacy.  He knew about the official claim that NAPLAN assessments did not replace the ongoing teacher assessments about student performance.  From this comprehensive assessment program schools could gain an insight into how students were ranked within their age cohorts with some guidance on any diagnostic steps they might need to take to boost student performance.

Like others Tom had observed the considerable evidence that teachers and students felt an uncomfortable pressure from the annual NAPLAN skills tests.  He was reminded that as described on the NAP website (July 2015) the content of these tests is informed by the National Statement of Learning for English and National Statement of learning for Mathematics which underpin state and territory learning frameworks.  He also learned that it was anticipated that NAPLAN tests would be aligned with the ANC once it had been substantially implemented in schools.

Tom wanted schools to manage the annual NAPLAN testing in ways that did not create pressures on teachers and students.  Many students would face degrees of difficulty in the NAPLAN tests beyond the learning mastery stage that they had achieved in their journey through the ANC subjects.  This referred to Tom’s principle in applying the ANC subjects, that students attain mastery before moving on to the next learning step.  The Leopards would be one group who would need teacher confidence building to tackle the NAPLAN items.  They would need to be convinced that the results could assist their teachers to plan future learning.  They also needed to have confidence that even though their parents would receive the NAPLAN results that their parents understood from the school that the most important learning outcomes came from mastery in the  subjects of the ANC.

The NAPLAN results for each school are posted on a website 'my school' and are available for parent perusal and in the view of some enable parents to choose a successful school for their children.  This is a major pressure point for principals, especially if their school is located in a low socio economic area or is essentially a school for indigenous children, who in remote communities do not have a good record for regular school attendance.

Sorry about the blue text but it is all part of the editing process.

May the Force be with you!


GD