Science Education News (SEN) Journal 2018 Science Education News Volume 67 Number 2 | Page 33

ARTICLES Let’s Abandon NAPLAN – We can do Better! By Nan Bahr and Donna Pendergast Getting rid of NAPLAN would remove a distraction from the classroom and allow teachers more time to understand and address the needs of the students. Dean Lewins The National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy sounds like it ought to improve literacy and numeracy. But it hasn’t. child’s schooling, in years three, five, seven and nine. The event occurs each May and results are provided about three or four months later. Instead, it has been somewhat of a distraction for teachers, students and communities. NAPLAN was to be the path to learner excellence. Julia Gillard said, regarding the full introduction of NAPLAN across the country: "It’s important to the individual child and their parents to get a report card about how that child is going against national standards. It’s important to teachers; they do value this diagnostic information to work out what they need to do next for the children in their class. And we need it for MySchool, which is more information than the nation’s ever had before about what’s happening in Australian schools". Since it’s clear NAPLAN hasn’t been an outrageous success, we suggest we ought to rest the program and adopt more continuous teacher-led evaluation methods that enable teachers to respond directly to students. It was hailed as the process that would help teachers identify literacy and numeracy weaknesses and strengths. In doing so, it was to provide accountability for teachers for our students and our nation, and we could see how schools were performing. These intentions were admirable, if not idealistic, and entrenched in a strong accountability agenda. So, it’s time for us to move beyond NAPLAN to achieve aspirations that have currency. What’s the problem? NAPLAN testing happens the second full week of May each year. Michael Coghlan - flickr As educators in the teaching profession we have a few issues with the limitations and impact of the NAPLAN regime: 1. the tests provide information about student performance in narrow aspects of literacy and numeracy; Why do we have NAPLAN? 2. it’s well outdated by the time teachers, parents and students receive it, as it can take up to four months for teachers to receive results from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment NAPLAN is a series of tests conducted in exam conditions. The paper tests occur across three days every second year of a 33 SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 67 NO 2