Education
YEAR 5 NAPLAN WHAT PARENTS NEED TO KNOW The National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy, better known as NAPLAN is an annual national assessment program in which all Year 3, 5, 7 & 9 students participate in literacy tests covering reading, writing, language conventions (spelling, grammar and punctuation), and numeracy tests covering number, algebra, functions & patterns, space, measurement, chance & data. ACARA, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority describes the purpose of NAPLAN as being “the measure through which governments, education authorities, schools, teachers and parents can determine whether young Australians are meeting important educational outcomes in literacy and numeracy. The tests provide parents and schools with an understanding of how individual students are performing at the time of the tests. They also provide schools, states and territories with information about how education programs are working and what areas need to be prioritised for improvement. NAPLAN tests are one aspect of a school’s assessment and reporting process; they do not replace the extensive ongoing assessments made by teachers about each student’s performance.” The very mention of NAPLAN generates emotional responses from members of our community as wide ranging as from students to Prime
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Your Local Families Magazine February/March 2017
Ministers. For Year 5 students who are old-hands and who already sat the test in Year 3, fear, dread, worry, concern, anticipation, eagerness, and excitement are some of the feelings they may experience. Parents, teachers, school and community leaders, may also experience these emotions as this compulsory national assessment is no longer an ‘unknown’ but something very real that has a vast array of effects on our students. Regardless of which camp you belong to i.e. whether you are pro or anti NAPLAN, it’s important to remember that NAPLAN is here, and that schools must administer the test; so hence my first piece of advice to Year 5 NAPLAN parents especially, is to not waste precious energy worrying – firstly and most importantly it is essential that for the sake of our children we adopt and maintain a growth mindset around every aspect of the NAPLAN experience.