ACARA news, May 2017

Release of the national report on schooling

The National Report on Schooling in Australia 2014 has been released today. ACARA produces this report on behalf of the COAG Education Council.

A new interactive resource called the National Report on Schooling data portal has been established and has also been released today. While the national report is an annual update, with this edition containing 2014 data, the new data portal has more recent data on schools and schooling, including data on key performance measures.

Charts and tables on the data portal enable users to filter data by state, school sector, school level, type, Indigeneity and other measures where appropriate.

This inaugural data portal contains data up to 2015. Later this year, the portal will be updated with available 2016 data. The information accessed through the portal will be updated twice a year to provide users with the latest information possible.

The national report on schooling in Australia will continue to be published as an annual record, complemented by the interactive data on the data portal. The national report contains a wealth of important education data, but takes some time to publish because of the need to collect, validate and gain approval of many datasets.

Digital Technologies specialists to visit disadvantaged schools

As a part of the Australian Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda, ACARA has been funded to support the implementation of the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies in some of Australia’s most disadvantaged schools.

ACARA will soon commence training eight Digital Technologies specialists, who will travel to low socio-educational level schools in each state and territory as a part of the Digital Technologies in Focus project, providing support and expertise to primary and secondary school teachers.

One hundred and sixty schools with a low ICSEA (index of community socio-educational advantage) rating have been invited to participate in the project. From July 2017, leaders and teachers from these schools will participate in workshops to support the implementation of Digital Technologies subject within their schools.

In 2018, the Digital Technologies specialists will conduct regional professional learning workshops with teachers and school leaders. These workshops will be customised to the specific needs of participating schools, with webinars and online mentoring complementing face-to-face events.

ACARA CEO, Robert Randall, said it was particularly important that the Digital Technologies specialists work collaboratively with schools to address their specific, individual needs and focus on ‘tackling the digital divide’.

“We need to ensure that students most at risk of falling behind in the digital age are given opportunities to participate and engage,” Mr Randall said.

“Our 2014 report into the National Assessment Program – Information and Communication Technology Literacy assessments showed a significant decline in the mean performance of both Year 6 and Year 10 students between the 2011 and 2014 assessments. This decline is highly concerning as it illustrates a pressing need for students to learn about, and work with, traditional, contemporary and emerging technologies that shape the world we live in.”

Mr Randall believes the initiative would provide a valuable professional development opportunity for teachers to strengthen their skills in Digital Technologies, with professional learning and leadership workshops, support materials and ongoing online support provided by ACARA.

“Through this project, school leaders and teachers will develop their Digital Technologies knowledge, understanding and skills, and in turn, students’ computational thinking and ICT capability should enhance,” Mr Randall said.

“Our Digital Technologies specialists are skilled teachers with intimate understanding of the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies. By sharing their valuable knowledge, we can better support students’ digital learning outcomes in some of the most disadvantaged schools in our country.”

For more information about the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies, visit the Australian Curriculum website.

NAPLAN 2017 finishes without the world ending

By Robert Randall, CEO of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA)

NAPLAN is now over for 2017. The world didn’t stop spinning, there were no major incidents, and the vast majority of students, parents and teachers rightly treated NAPLAN for what it is – a series of short tests designed to gain valuable information on how Australia’s students are doing in the fundamentally important areas of literacy and numeracy.

Results will be out later in the year, in around 10–12 weeks, when we get information back to parents and schools about how students have performed on this year's tests. When NAPLAN moves online, this timeframe will be significantly reduced. 

It has now been a decade since NAPLAN was introduced. The annual assessment is mainly seen as a routine, but important, part of the school calendar. And that’s the way it should be.

Although less prevalent now than in the early years of NAPLAN, we do continue to hear the same NAPLAN myths repeated. I feel it is important to again dispel some of those common misconceptions…

NAPLAN doesn’t add any value – my child already takes tests at school

NAPLAN is a valuable tool for educators and parents to see how well Australia’s children are going in relation to literacy and numeracy standards. NAPLAN is a point-in-time snapshot assessment of students’ achievements in these areas. As a nation-wide assessment, NAPLAN doesn’t replace the assessment activities that are regularly held in classrooms; rather, it complements these assessments, adding a valuable national dimension.

Many school principals have actively voiced their support of NAPLAN. As in previous years, during this year’s NAPLAN testing, principals were commenting that the testing provides teachers and schools with data and valuable information that are used as intended – to target teaching both for groups of students and individuals.    

There’s no point in my child taking NAPLAN   

As we know, literacy and numeracy are fundamental skills every child needs in life to succeed. NAPLAN doesn’t test everything that happens in a classroom – it isn’t intended to – but it does look at the critically important areas of literacy and numeracy. NAPLAN is a check on these areas – to see how each student is going, to see who is excelling, and to see who might need more help. Who wouldn’t want to know if a child is falling behind in a certain area? In reading, for example. That way help can be offered to them. No students should be left behind or overlooked in gaining essential literacy and numeracy skills.

NAPLAN causes anxiety and stress

NAPLAN is not the first, nor the last test a child will take. It’s true, some students may feel anxious about NAPLAN, but it’s up to the adults in children’s lives to help keep NAPLAN in context. It’s a test that is taken four times in a child’s school life. Over three days, there are four tests, which take around one hour each. NAPLAN tests what students should learn through everyday teaching. Testing students’ literacy and numeracy skills is not new, states and territories had testing programs in place for many years before NAPLAN was introduced, it’s just that NAPLAN provides a national assessment and a national perspective.

While I regret any case of stress experienced by a young person as a result of NAPLAN, I can only wonder how it compares to the ongoing stress felt by young people and adults who do not possess the literacy and numeracy skills necessary to continue learning at, and beyond, school.

NAPLAN data published on My School creates league tables

My School is not about league tables. There are no league tables on the website and ACARA does all it can to avoid the publication of league tables. In fact, My School and the data provided on it have enabled us to identify schools that are demonstrating gain and celebrating cases of above average gain. 

Parents can use My School as one source of information about their child’s schooling, alongside other sources. Parents can make comparisons between their child’s school and others catering for students with similar backgrounds.

Overall, NAPLAN is about driving improvement in our schools. The valuable data gained are used for forward-planning, allocating support and resources, and tracking progress and achievements of individual students, as well as entire groups of students, over the course of their educational journey.

The data from NAPLAN is used to make sure we are doing our very best to give every Australian child the skills to thrive, by equipping them with essential literacy and numeracy skills.

The biggest failure would be if we were not monitoring how our children are going in these areas. An illiterate or innumerate child will not be a successful adult.

Robert Randall

NAPLAN starts on Tuesday 9 May

Around 1.1 million students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 will participate in the annual National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) starting on 9 May 2017.

As NAPLAN enters its tenth year of testing, the tests continue to be an important tool for parents, educators and the public to see if Australia’s children are meeting essential literacy and numeracy standards.

“NAPLAN has now become a regular part of the school year,” ACARA CEO, Robert Randall said. “The point-in-time snapshot assessment adds a national dimension to existing school literacy and numeracy tests, and provides information that parents and educators find valuable.

“It is important that parents and educators have access to information about their child’s progress in these areas – it is the only national test that shows growth over a child’s schooling career and allows comparisons to be made with a child’s peers in the same year level and around the country.”

Mr Randall reminded parents and students that NAPLAN was not a test that could be studied for, and excessive cramming and drilling was unnecessary.

“NAPLAN questions are directly linked to the Australian Curriculum: English and Mathematics,” he said. “As such, the best preparation is just learning what is taught in the classroom every day.

“There is no need for excessive preparation. It is up to the adults in these children’s lives to put the test in perspective – it is one test, four times in their schooling career, that tests their everyday learning.”

NAPLAN will be held between 9 and 11 May 2017.

All students will be completing NAPLAN in its paper-based format in 2017. In 2018, schools will commence the transition to NAPLAN Online.

“Moving NAPLAN online by 2019 has been a goal of all states and territories for several years now,” Mr Randall said. “It will result in better assessment, more precise results and faster turnaround of information.

“In August and September this year, schools will be able to participate in a practice of the technology, or a ‘readiness test’, in preparation for the move online in 2018.”

NAPLAN 2017 paper test timetable