In May this year, over one million students from Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 will participate in an assessment of their literacy and numeracy skills.
As with any test in life – whether academic, sport or hobby-related – some students may feel anxious about NAPLAN. In these cases, it is up to the adults in students’ lives to help explain what NAPLAN is all about and keep it in perspective.
For students, NAPLAN is a short assessment they take only four times during their school life, which checks what they normally learn in the classroom every day.
For parents, NAPLAN is a point-in-time assessment for seeing how their child, compared with the rest of Australia’s children, is progressing in the fundamental skills of literacy and numeracy. The information NAPLAN provides supports conversations between parents, teachers and schools working together to help children achieve their full potential.
NAPLAN data are also used to support school improvement processes by enabling teachers to monitor their students’ progress over time against a national measure, and to identify areas of strength and development. NAPLAN data, when used in combination with other school-based assessments, provide teachers with diagnostic information for planning their teaching programs, and guiding and supporting their students’ learning journey.
Literacy and numeracy are fundamentally important for all young people, but NAPLAN is not, and should never be, the sole measure of a child’s achievement at school or of the success of a school.
School curriculum has so much to offer. All students should have an opportunity to study a rich curriculum for literature, science, humanities and social sciences, technology, health and physical education, languages, and the arts.
So, if your child is sitting NAPLAN this year, simply encourage them to do the best they can and treat the test day as any other school day.
NAPLAN starts Tuesday 15 May.
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In 2018, for the first time, some students will sit NAPLAN online. The online test uses tailored testing, where the test automatically adapts to student performance and asks questions that match the student achievement level.
Tailored testing provides more precise results for teachers and schools, and students say they find it more engaging. The goal is to have all students undertake NAPLAN Online by 2020. ---
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