Thursday, December 13, 2018
New releases of NAPLAN Tests from ACARA
Friday, November 16, 2018
2019 NAPLAN dates
Paper-based NAPLAN Tests - 14–16 May 2019
Online NAPLAN Tests - 14–24 May 2019
https://bit.ly/2PuW112
Online NAPLAN Tests - 14–24 May 2019
https://bit.ly/2PuW112
Friday, September 28, 2018
No review of the Australian Curriculum
17 September 2018
Contrary to media speculation over the weekend, there is no review of the Australian Curriculum underway, and there is no ‘shift’ away from what has been agreed for Australia’s students to learn in school.
The Australian Curriculum, which is being implemented in schools across the country, sets the expectations for what all young Australians should be taught, regardless of where they live in Australia or their background. ACARA drew on the best national talent and expertise, and consulted widely to develop the Australian Curriculum, which was endorsed by all education ministers in 2015.
The Australian Curriculum sets out these expectations in terms of eight learning areas and seven general capabilities, with attention also being given to three cross-curriculum priorities.
As agreed by the Education Council – comprising all Australia’s education ministers – ACARA is required to undertake annual monitoring of the effectiveness of the Australian Curriculum and conduct research into developments in curriculum design, including international comparison studies. Copies of annual monitoring reports and international comparisons studies are available.
This work may inform future advice to ministers about refinements to the Australian Curriculum; however, it cannot in any way be characterised as a review or a whole-scale redesign of the curriculum.
ACARA is scheduled to provide advice to education ministers on the potential scope for refinements of the Australian Curriculum in 2019–20. Any actions to then refine the Australian Curriculum will require the endorsement of all education ministers before changes are made.
Robert Randall,
ACARA Chief Executive Officer
ACARA Chief Executive Officer
Background
When preparing advice to education ministers in 2019–20 about the scope of any possible refinements of the Australian Curriculum, ACARA will draw on the following work:
- The general capabilities are already a key feature of the Australian Curriculum. Given the experience of schools implementing the curriculum, there is interest in how they might be given greater emphasis and how teachers might be better supported in the teaching and assessing of the curriculum.
- At the end of 2017, ACARA released literacy and numeracy learning progressions as a support resource for teachers. The progressions help teachers locate the literacy and numeracy development of their students and identify what development should follow.
- ACARA has engaged the Center for Curriculum Redesign for expert advice and assistance as one of the actions under our program of research. Working together with experts from Australia and overseas, the participants of the project intend to produce a blueprint of a world-leading mathematics curriculum that any country could use to inform their own curriculum design.
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Thursday, September 13, 2018
2018 Writing
A note about 2018 Writing results
Marking of online writing scripts was not completed within the Online National Assessment Platform used to deliver the online tests. This results in anomalous reporting of Year 5, Year 7 and Year 9 online Writing within the Student and School Summary Report (SSSR). More details regarding reporting of online Writing results can be found on pages 9 and 10 of How to Interpret the SSSR (pdf - 5.86mb).
All Writing results are accurately presented in the data service reports and in the printed Individual Student Reports.
On average, students or schools who completed Year 9 Writing online achieved a result of 10 to 15 scale score points higher than those of similar ability who completed the test on paper. This is approximately one-quarter of a NAPLAN band and any comparison with results from paper testing need to take this into consideration. Results for online and paper tests at Year 5 and Year 7 are comparable.
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
2018 NAPLAN reports
NAPLAN 2018 summary released
Today ACARA has released the NAPLAN 2018 summary information, providing preliminary results at the national, and state and territory level for each school year (3, 5, 7 and 9) and for all domains tested in NAPLAN.
The data provide comparisons of 2018 results with 2017 and with base years (2008 for numeracy, reading and conventions of language, and 2011 for writing).
All Australian education systems are moving to NAPLAN Online by 2020. Online testing provides more accurate and precise information about what students know and can do. This year, the first year of transition, around 20 per cent of students undertook NAPLAN online. In 2019, a larger percentage of students will undertake NAPLAN online, with the remainder sitting the paper assessments.
The NAPLAN summary results issued today include combined data for online and paper student cohorts.
- See the NAPLAN summary data.
- Read the ‘NAPLAN 2018 summary information’ media release (PDF 69 kb).
- Read a statement from the Measurement Advisory Group experts regarding this year’s NAPLAN results (PDF 55 kb).
Friday, August 17, 2018
Using NAPLAN Tests for Assessment
Attention: All Teachers
- Want to use past NAPLAN tests for assessment in your classes?
- Save time
- Kilbaha has the detailed answers to all ACARA NAPLAN Tests.
FREE detailed answers to the 2018 NAPLAN Tests.
Send email to kilbaha@gmail.com for details of this offer.
Best wishes,
Bill Healy
Saturday, July 21, 2018
NAPLAN 2019
NAPLAN important dates for 2019
NAPLAN 2019 paper tests will be conducted on Tuesday 14 May, Wednesday 15 May and Thursday 16 May 2019.
For schools undertaking NAPLAN Online in 2019, the test window will run from Tuesday 14 May to Friday 24 May 2019.
NAPLAN and Mathematics
A new report released by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel has underscored the importance of the beleaguered NAPLAN test for shining a “spotlight” on strategies to lift the nation’s declining mathematics performance.
Schools can turn around students’ maths results within two years by adopting highly effective approaches identified through extensive analysis of NAPLAN data, the research paper, released by Dr Finkel’s office yesterday, argues.
Successful schools have a classroom focus on mastery and understanding key concepts, leaders who highly value the subject, and they use data to monitor students’ progress.
The findings, which come from research by the University of Tasmania, stem from analysis of 619 primary and secondary schools nationally that showed outstanding improvements in their NAPLAN numeracy scores over a two-year period.
The paper describes NAPLAN as “a spotlight for improvement”.
Dr Finkel said that while he was reluctant to weigh in on the NAPLAN debate — which has seen the Education Council announce a review of the way data is publicised — the research wouldn’t have been possible without access to such data.
“Data is important if you want to … improve,” Dr Finkel said. “For example, we’ve learned the … importance of leadership. Of the hundreds of schools (analysed), every single one had a senior leader or head of maths that pushed the importance of the subject.”
The research also confirmed that 90 per cent of successful schools used data to better understand their students, classes, cohorts or the school, with some schools using NAPLAN data to identify misunderstood concepts to focus teaching.
The endorsement comes as NAPLAN has been under attack from unions and some states.
The government has recently endorsed in principle a recommendation from the Gonski review into education that would see the development of an online learning tool that would closely track student learning progress and could supersede the NAPLAN regime.
Centre for Independent Studies education policy analyst Blaise Joseph said the report was a good example of how NAPLAN data could be used to identify best practice and be used to help the school system improve.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/education/naplan-unlocks-key-to-mathematics/news-story/eac483745fc44a309170dbebc6d1c34f
Friday, June 1, 2018
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
NAPLAN 2018 starts today
Read the latest information from ACARA.
https://mailchi.mp/acara/acara-update-extra-naplan-2018?e=aaf1cff920
https://mailchi.mp/acara/acara-update-extra-naplan-2018?e=aaf1cff920
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
Sunday, May 6, 2018
NSW criticism of NAPLAN
A simplistic criticism of NAPLAN from the privileged position of a wealthy independent school. This sort of stuff raises its head every year just before NAPLAN each year from people wanting to score political points. Why have NAPLAN? Simple! If you don't assess it, it will not be taught by some teachers who prefer other things to literacy and numeracy.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/drumbeat-to-ditch-naplan-is-growing-louder-and-rightly-so-20180504-p4zde3.html
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/drumbeat-to-ditch-naplan-is-growing-louder-and-rightly-so-20180504-p4zde3.html
Monday, April 30, 2018
Sunday, April 29, 2018
New! New! New!
2018 NAPLAN starts 15 May
- Simple NAPLAN preparation with minimum work for teachers
- The interactive, online 2018 Kilbaha NAPLAN Trial Tests are now available
- Use on any computer
- Automatic marking
- Automatic recording of student answers
- Language - download sample here
- Reading - download sample here
- Writing - download sample here
- Numeracy - download sample here
- Detailed answers and responses
- School site licence for all tests
Buy online here
Best wishes,
Bill Healy BSc BA Dip Ed
CEO
Monday, April 9, 2018
ACARA NAPLAN Tests
Important news for schools.
If you are missing any of the ACARA test papers from 2008 - 2016, you can obtain these by contacting ACARA.
The 2017 NAPLAN Test questions are NOT available.
If you are missing any of the ACARA test papers from 2008 - 2016, you can obtain these by contacting ACARA.
The 2017 NAPLAN Test questions are NOT available.
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