NAPLAN week
The notion that NAPLAN is a one off test and therefore not a true reflection of a students ability is nonsense. This is language used by education bureaucrats, politicians and commentators to calm the public in the week of the assessments and the same rhetoric appears when the results come out later in the year.
In 20 years of analysing the results, I never saw one student fluke a great result in the NAPLAN test. It's just not possible. The tests are designed to identify what a student knows and they do a darn good job of that. They are also really useful in telling the principal which teachers are doing a great job in providing a quality education program in the years leading up to NAPLAN.
I spent hours every year comparing the NAPLAN tests results to other commonly used school assessments like the ACER PAT Testing and Essential Assessments and there was never any large patterns of discrepancy. Of course there are outliers but that happens from time to time.
The other notion that NAPLAN places too much pressure on students and heightens anxiety might be true, but aren't we just preparing students for challenges they are going to face during their lives. Aren't you better off finding out how your child performs under pressure now, so you can be better prepared when they have to sit VCE exams and go for their first job interview.
We don't see articles in the paper about a child's anxiety when trying out for the representative basketball team or auditioning for the school theatre production. Interesting when it is a students passion, we support their anxiety and don't complain. But when it's a Maths and English test parents 'protect' them and keep them home from school.
Where NAPLAN comes undone is the way the results are communicated in the media. By publishing 'league tables' as News Corp continues to do, all we see is a list of schools in suburbs from most advantaged (wealthiest) to that of least advantage. But this wont change until ACARA changes how they publish the data.
I'm Mark and I used to be a principal!
