National Testing and Reporting of Data
20091006 Tuesday 6 October 2009
Parents with sons and daughters in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 will have received the individual results of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). This is an important national program and gives parents the opportunity to assess how their child’s literacy and numeracy education is progressing, based on national benchmarks.
Haileybury also receives School-wide, year level and class results. The School does a detailed analysis of the data and uses the findings for ongoing School academic improvement plans.
I am delighted with the results for 2009. They demonstrate further improvement in student performance on an already high set of 2008 and 2007 results. It is increasingly clear that the explicit teaching model being used throughout the Junior School is having a positive impact on literacy and numeracy. I am delighted that, despite coming off a high base, there has been improvement at every year level with the 2009 results.
From December this year, the Federal Government has said the data will be available for all schools on State-wide websites. It will thus be possible for a parent to look at the website and find NAPLAN information from Haileybury and also look at the same information from a range of other schools.
Haileybury welcomes this availability. Parents have a right to have as much information as possible when choosing a school whether that be from the Government, Catholic or Independent sectors. We believe that Haileybury’s results will look exceptionally good. We have already received further enquiries about the Fleming Effective Method of teaching. Mr Fleming’s new role as Deputy Principal (Junior School Teaching and Learning) will enable him to further refine this program across all of our campuses. A number of groups within education have been rallying against the publication of the NAPLAN data. Teacher unions and representatives from government sector principals have indicated they may not allow the tests to be conducted next year. This is an outrageous attempt to stifle the publication of legitimate information about the performance of a school.
Haileybury fully supports the NAPLAN testing program and the full publication of the data that results from it. We would, in fact, like to see a much wider range of VCE data published – in particular the value-added performance of schools which is currently measured but not published. Instead, the very narrow measure of percentage of study scores over 40 is the most widely publicised. This favours select entry schools in performance measures whereas the value-added data gives a broad analysis of the performance of students across the school in the Year 12 year relative to their ability.
Federal Education Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has said she is determined to introduce a new era of school transparency. Haileybury supports this and encourages the State and Federal Governments to publish the widest range of data possible so that parents can have as much information as possible to make informed choices about schools.
