Federal secretary Chris Watt, of the Independent Education Union of Australia, has deemed unnecessary the nationwide “every-child, every-year” NAPLAN methodology, suggesting sampling could instead successfully identify key improvement areas.
In response to the University of Melbourne’s national study on the impacts of NAPLAN testing, Mr Watt said the IEUA supports ‘in-principle’ the purpose of NAPLAN but also believes appropriate measures could be taken to ease stresses placed on school communities.
“Do we really need to test every kid, every year? Our view is that we can target improvement areas by using sample testing, which would in turn alleviate a lot of the stress and the pressure,” Mr Watt said.
“Whilst NAPLAN has the potential to deliver professional development outcomes for teachers, stresses are created as NAPLAN results form a central element of the MySchool website construction and appearance contributing to the creation of a “high-stake” environment.”
“In this environment principals and school communities feel they should be doing better and therefore inappropriate amounts of time and energy are spent preparing for the test in some schools.”
Mr Watt also noted the current timing of the test in May, and the receipt of results later in the school year, results in too little time available for classroom teachers to respond to diagnostic results.
“If it’s genuinely diagnostic, it’s got to be done in a range of different ways including timing and return of information.”
Media Contact: Penny Bradley 0429 020 409 or pbradley@ieu.org.au