From the Principal
A topic of interest at the moment is NAPLAN Testing. Last week the Year 3, 5 and Year 7 students participated in the testing which was done online for the first time by our school. In fact, 83% of Catholic schools in South Australia were doing the tests online. An email was sent home to all families complementing the students and staff in how the tests were undertaken. We did experience some technical hitches during the testing that were quickly addressed without undue affect upon the students.
The authority for administering the tests have given schools the opportunity to re-do the Writing test after a number of students Australia wide experienced connectivity issues, making it unfair for some students. After consulting the teachers and some of the students involved in our testing, we decided not to re-do the test. Some students did experience connection issues for a short period (15 seconds in some cases) that were quickly rectified without placing the students in an unfair situation. This was not case in many other cases, such a Western Australia, where online testing was ceased after the Writing test and they reverted to the paper form of the tests. All of our testing was conducted online and completed.
The students are to be complemented on how they approached the testing and how they were extremely well supported by the staff when managing any technical difficulties when they arose. It does raise a concern for me about the integrity of the data, in particular how the data is used when the testing conditions vary from school to school. I’m sure there will be a lot more conversation via the media and within the education sector about the future of online NAPLAN testing.
I did some supervision during the testing and it was really interesting to observe the students. As I have said, they are to be commended. It also speaks highly of what we have done as a school in the digital technologies area to support student learning. An example of this is the BYOD (Bring Your own Device) programme where students from Year 3-7 have laptops included in the learning programme. Students are living in a technological and more globalised society and it is our role as educators to teach and equip them with appropriate skills, knowledge and capabilities for their future world.
The benefits of NAPLAN will continually be debated. I believe the benefit is twofold. Firstly it does produce data about student performance which we as school analyse to improve student literacy and numeracy standards. Secondly, parents are informed where their child is performing compared to other students. I am yet to be informed when the testing data will be made available to parents and the school, but we are relieved the testing is over and hopefully the authorities presiding over the testing listen to the feedback to initiate the necessary changes for future NAPLAN testing.
Kind regards
Greg Haynes
Principal