NAPLAN

Next week is, for many years 3,5,7 and 9 students across the country, a week that causes a great deal of anxiety, and yet it shouldn’t. Next week is NAPLAN Week- the National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy. All students in these year levels, with the exception of those that have been exempt or withdrawn, will undergo a series of assessments in Reading, Writing, Spelling and Grammar, Writing Conventions and Number. These assessments will occur on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

NAPLAN simply provides a range of questions in each of these assessments, with the exception of writing, where the children provide an answer. Sometimes it will be multiple choice, sometimes selecting from a range of options, and sometimes providing a one word answer or performing a  mathematical calculation. All children will find some of the questions easy as they will be pitched at up to two year levels below their current grade level and most children will find some of the questions difficult as they will be pitched at a level up to two years beyond where they might currently be. In the writing assessment, students will be given a stimulus and from that will be required to provide a written piece in a particular genre or style of writing.

 

Class teachers will have spent some time preparing the children for the style of tests that will be presented so that they have some familiarity with the way in which NAPLAN will be presented, however, we do not train or tutor the children in NAPLAN as we see that this is one small part of the overall assessment program to inform us of the particular point at which each child is achieving. The reality is that when we get the results back in late August or early September it will tell us where the children were in May. This is not overly helpful in assisting teachers to plan their programs, group children according to needs or to report on student achievement.

 

Anxiety can often occur because of expectations that children perceive in the way that  we as teachers and parents have of them, so the best way that you can help your child with NAPLAN is simply to wish them well, but not to put any pressure on them. They will perform much better if they are relaxed and not concerned about ‘failure’.