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 it’s well outdated by the time teachers, parents and students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
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 67 NO 2