NAPLAN testing is being carried out in our schools this week.
This is of great value to our local schools our children our parents and the future of our community.
The results do provide extremely valuable information to help us understand how well our teachers are doing their job educating our children. Let’s not lose sight for a second how important this is.
What can we do?
Make sure all the children go to school on the NAPLAN test days. Missing out on a NAPLAN test is a lie that the school and the teacher and anyone involved inflicts on the community. It reduces the excellent quality of NAPLAN as a tool for understanding whether our teachers are getting results with our children.
Cooked results for a particular teacher class level or school don’t help.
What really helps is schools that take NAPLAN results to heart and learn from them and change and improve their teaching methods to get improved results from students.
What we can do as a community as parents is to pay attention think it is important and matters and don’t let anyone get away with talking NAPLAN results down. This is a con on all of us if they do.
Our schools can’t attract improved resources if the NAPLAN results are lies – if the weak students are kept away on the day. And the non-participation rate is recorded.
If you know a parent or teacher who encourages a child not to participate don’t keep quiet about it. This hurts us all.
On the testing days make sure our children are well hydrated. A drink of water can be a simple non-cheating way of getting the best results our children are capable of.