Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to order, I present the Education and Employment References Committee report titled Effectiveness of the National Assessment Program—Literacy and numeracy together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The NAPLAN report has been a long time coming to the Senate, and it is with some pleasure that I table the report today and have it available for the public to see the committee's assessment of the submissions presented to it. The committee received a number of submissions from academics, teachers and schools. As you would appreciate, Mr Deputy President, the lead-up to the introduction of this annual test was a little contentious in Australia. Before the test commenced in May 2008, states and territories in Australia were conducting tests in literacy and numeracy. Initially, the committee looked at how we might make comparisons with those tests conducted across the states and territories but, as I am sure the Senate can appreciate, it was an impossible task. The tests were too different to really be able to provide any objective analysis of the state of student outcomes across the country.

In 2008, the NAPLAN test was introduced. NAPLAN is administered across the country in both primary and secondary schools to students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 and tests across four core areas of reading, writing, language and numeracy. The test results are made available some four months later. The submissions received by the committee went into great detail about the test. It is obvious that the test is of great interest to parents, schools and universities, particularly those that have education as part of their fraternity. Many issues were raised with the committee, including the view that students were nervous before the test and that that could somehow impact on the results. We also had a number of submissions saying that teachers were really moving away from a broad commitment to school learning and were teaching towards the test. There were also those who thought that NAPLAN was a very good diagnostic tool. It is fair to say that the committee saw a great depth and breadth of interest from everyone concerned with education—and we should be concerned about education.

It is critically important for us in the parliament and for everyone concerned with schooling to make sure that the investment we make in schools is the best that it can possibly be and that we ensure student outcomes are as good as we can get them. It is important to remind ourselves of the educational goals of NAPLAN, which are to ensure that Australian schooling promotes equity and excellence and that all the young Australians become successful learners, confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens. They are two very good and very important goals. Certainly the committee was of the view that, generally speaking, NAPLAN was working and that it was a good tool.

Further, it was felt by some that there was too much of a gap between the time the test was administered and when the test results were made available. If we are measuring the performance of our students then those results should be available quickly so that appropriate diagnostic tools and measurements can be put in place. Then we do not merely note the NAPLAN test but use the outcomes of the test more constructively to enable good teaching to occur. Across geographic areas where there are a number of schools, whether in local communities or large regional towns, we could do a lot more in terms of school performance by asking those schools that are performing well in tests what are they doing that enables their students to perform better in tests as opposed to a school three or four streets away. That is the second stage of NAPLAN: how do we use the results of NAPLAN to hone in on school performance? NAPLAN has now been around since 2008. I am pleased to say that today's report is supported by all senators involved in that report. That we are able to say, despite our differences, that we all believe it is an important diagnostic tool, augurs well for the ongoing success of NAPLAN. Certainly, the results need to be available much more quickly, and now that NAPLAN has moved to an online test there is no reason we cannot get those results back to schools as soon as possible.

The next stage for us is to ask: how do we take those tests and use them to improve student performance? How do we look at what is happening in a particular area or across the state or across states—which NAPLAN already does—compare like for like? Where we have really good pedagogy and good test results, then how do we share them? Education should not be occurring in a competitive environment. We want all students to succeed at school regardless of their background or where they live. The results of NAPLAN should be used to dig into why some students in some schools perform better at NAPLAN than others. How do we then bring everyone along with us—how we use those results to improve all students' performance.

Parents can measure where their child is performing against a national average and we can look at how a local school is performing against schools in similar areas and in similar circumstances. For me the next step needs to be: how do we take excellence and make sure it is shared right across the community? The other thing the committee has been at pains to stress was that NAPLAN in and of itself cannot improve student performance. It measures student performance, but actual improvement in student performance rests with quality teaching, quality teacher training and good pedagogical leadership in the school—where good principals are willing to look beyond their own school gate at the school that perhaps did better than them down the road in, say, in the area of literacy and investigate why that happened and what they can to make sure in the next round of NAPLAN they are doing as well as the other school.

The committee believes that at the micro level, the school level, but those results can be most effective and that is certainly where parents want NAPLAN to be effective and where the community wants to see those NAPLAN results analysed at school level and developed much more fully. There is no point in doing national testings if the results come back to schools and sit on the shelf collecting dust. That is not what we want to see. It is about improving school performance. I commend the report. (Time expired)

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the coalition to support the report and recommendations of the effectiveness of the national assessment program literacy and numeracy. Knowing that my Senate colleagues, Senator Wright and Senator McKenzie, do want to contribute, I will confine my remarks. The first thing to say is that the coalition supports the report and its recommendations. All of us on the committee particularly support shortening the interval between when the NAPLAN test is taken and when the results come back. Of course, with new technologies we believe these capacities exist with online testing. One of the things I do want to emphasise, however, is that, whilst in government, we will work closely with the states and the territories, the Catholic sector and the independent schools, to make sure that the technologies and the equipment are in place so that if and when we move to an online testing platform then we do not add to students' anxiety because the computers are breaking down or because they do not have access to them in the first place or because they do not have the capacity to use them. That is one of the recommendations I endorse.

The second point feeds on from that: there are special problems for students with disabilities or students from a non-English-speaking background. We would be urging ACARA that the nature of the testing, the questions being asked, are those that students from a non-English-speaking background or those who may be new to this country have some understanding of the actual question being asked and that they are not left at the starting gates simply because they do not understand the background or the nature of the question. If we do want, as Senator Lines says, this to become a diagnostic tool that is of some use to a teacher then there is not much point of doing the test in March or April and getting the results in October. But in the meantime, of course, it prompts the question, 'Should the results be available to that student's teacher in the next year?' because the information may still be relevant to that teacher in grasping some understanding.

What the government does not support is the notion of league tables—inevitably the media, the newspapers in particular, love to get hold of the information that comes from the My School website and start producing league tables—but we cannot stop that happening and we do not intend to stop it happening. I think the message that needs to go out there is that this is not the basis upon which decisions are going to be made relating to either funding or resourcing. What is necessary is to use the results themselves, and the feedback from principals, to allow principals of schools to have far more autonomy in their decision making, while particularly including the parents, the teachers and the school community.

We do not want a circumstance in which pupils are pressured in going into this NAPLAN testing for fear that, if they do it badly in some way, their school is going to be disadvantaged—and we have seen evidence of that. Neither do we want a circumstance in which teachers teach to the test, out of fear induced in them by the bureaucracy or administration that, if somehow or other there is a poor performance by pupils, the school is going to be disadvantaged. That has encouraged some, indeed, to leave the students at home.

I propose to conclude my remarks there to allow time for my colleagues to make a contribution. I will simply say that we certainly endorse the report and its recommendations.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Wright, you have the call, but I would just remind you: debate will be interrupted at 12.45 and there will not be continuation.

Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I am very pleased to take note of the report of the Senate Education and Employment References Committee's inquiry into the effectiveness of the NAPLAN program. I moved to establish this inquiry because of the growing parental concern I was hearing about the impact of NAPLAN testing and the My School website on students. After six years of the NAPLAN scheme, I thought it was time to re-evaluate what was happening in schools and check that the tests were still putting student needs first.

What we uncovered was that it was not only having adverse consequences for some students—including things like anxiety and stress—but actually affecting teaching and learning practices as a whole. We heard evidence that teachers were spending more and more time teaching to the test, and that the publication of the results on the My School site had created a very competitive environment.

Teachers, parents, schools, academics and education groups generally all came forward to have their say during this inquiry, and they said with a near unanimous voice: 'NAPLAN testing has drifted away from its original purposes, and it is time for change.' It is time to make sure that NAPLAN works for students, not the other way around. It has become a high-stakes test, but it should not be that way, and it does not have to be that way.

Although there was a lot of confusion in the evidence before the inquiry about the purposes of NAPLAN in the first place, one thing is very clear: NAPLAN was not designed to evaluate school success, so it should not be used to rank and compare schools. This competitive environment has also seen a commercial spin-off, so we have had everything from NAPLAN training books and teddy bears to specialised after-school tutoring sessions.

The evidence presented to the committee was clear: the data that comes out of the NAPLAN test should be used to help parents and teachers track how a student is going and to help them. But we have actually created a competitive spirit where schools are increasingly holding dedicated time teaching to the test, drawing time and resources away from other important curriculum areas. One survey found that 66 per cent of teachers believed the test damaged student wellbeing. And teachers are asking not to teach the NAPLAN year levels because of the extra burden and parental expectations. Schools should not feel like NAPLAN is a be all and end all test. It is simply a snapshot of how a student is tracking on a few areas of literacy and numeracy.

So, to combat this, the committee is recommending that the government do more to monitor the use of NAPLAN data to make sure it is helping kids, not creating a competitive environment with league tables. We are recommending that more is done to help students with a disability and from language backgrounds other than English to demonstrate their understanding. We are also recommending that the NAPLAN results get back to parents and schools much faster; at the moment there is a three-month turnaround, which drastically impairs NAPLAN's effectiveness as a diagnostic tool.

However, on the strength of the evidence presented to the committee, the Australian Greens do not believe that the committee's recommendations go far enough. If you read the report you will see that the committee's views are framed much more strongly than the recommendations that were able to be agreed to unanimously.

So, first, I note that it was the position of the coalition before the election that individual school-level data should not be published on the My School site, and the education minister has made similar statements since coming to government. On the evidence presented to the committee about the profound changes to teaching and learning as a result of the My School site, the Australian Greens would be very willing to work with the federal government to work out the best way to do this.

There is so much more I could say, but I am going to run out of time. I do want to thank the many, many parents, teachers and principals, academics and education groups who made submissions and to thank the committee for their excellent work. The Australian Greens have tabled additional comments, which we think strengthen for the better the recommendations of the general committee report.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise in the remaining two minutes to make some very brief comments on the report of the Senate Education and Employment References Committee inquiry into the effectiveness of the NAPLAN program. I support wholeheartedly the chair's comments around what actually makes a difference in the classroom, to teachers and to educational outcomes for students, and that is: quality teaching and a degree of autonomy and flexibility at the local level to have a look around and adopt practices that will actually support the learning and development of our young people.

Obviously, Senator Back, we support the use of NAPLAN. It has provided an incredible amount of data for both state and federal governments to put on the table when designing their education policy. What we will be looking at—and this was one of the recommendations that came out of our inquiry—is the need to get the data into the classroom a lot quicker, so that teachers can adapt their pedagogy appropriately to the students in their classroom. That is what the test was designed to do, and ensuring that that time frame is shortened is a positive measure—and we support that state education ministers have set 2016 as the date for them to start looking at that, and we look forward to that. So we are not going to rush in to 'NAPLAN online', if you like, as a potential mechanism for doing that. That could be quite an adaptive process for young people and teachers to assess their numeracy and literacy, but it is going to take time. We are going to work comprehensively with state government and Catholic and independent systems to ensure that we get it right, so that we can make good decisions.

I just want to briefly comment on the need for increased support for student teachers and teachers in analysing and interpreting the quantitative data that comes out of NAPLAN.

I just wanted to make a brief comment on the Greens' additional comments around the creation of league tables and to reiterate the fact that the coalition does not support league tables. That is not what the tool was designed to do, nor should it be used for that. But we cannot stop media outlets, for instance, and other organisations using their numeracy skills with the data available to construct comparison data, nor would we want to.

Finally, I wanted to briefly touch on the fact that the department of the former Minister for Education in Tasmania, Greens Minister McKim, supported NAPLAN. (Time expired)

Debate interrupted.