Who has kids sitting naplan tomorrow? How are you and they feeling about it? I have a child in y5 sitting it. Funnily enough we’ve heard bugger all about it at his private school which is reasonably academic. When he was in y3 at the local public school we heard about it constantly, including how it didn’t matter and was one test on one day. I’m curious to see where my child will fall compared to his y3 results but otherwise has not been on our radar.

Oh wow, it’s tomorrow… there you go 🤦♀️ I have a yr 5 boy doing it. So not on my radar. He’s reading Ghosts something or other right now. I think its a bit of BS personally. From what I can gather (based on my quals and work in analytics) it’s pretty useless measure for anything other than longitudinal comparisons at a population level. Too open to biases and manipulations at a smaller scale. Means nothing to me.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-10/qtu-tells-teachers-and-principals-to-withdraw-kids-from-naplan/100125276 I’m interested in peoples take on the industrial action in Qld. I’ve always been pretty skeptical about standardised testing but I have to admit that since having kids start school I’ve been reflecting on how much better and more consistent the quality of primary schools is. I wonder if the combination of a national curriculum and regular testing to monitor minimum standards might be helping to maintain those standards but both of mine are too young for NAPLAN so I’m not even sure what’s involved.

I don’t know? We’ve only had dealings with two primary schools. One public and one private. The private school has been far more focused on getting on with learning than the public was. And have barely mentioned naplan apart from putting the dates in the school planner. They’re not afraid of it, the kids will do it, and then they’ll get on with the rest of the learning instead of the endless hand wringing about it. There’s been no teaching to tests. Lots of project based learning. Lots of outdoor play based learning all the way to y2. No rote learning or drills or practice exams. Interestingly the public school which was more ‘against it’ spent far more time gearing up for it and talking about it. If they’d just gotten on with letting kids learn who knows where we would be!! I do understand the limitations of it. And the frustration of it being used inappropriately. But it’s been lovely to be in an environment where it really doesn’t matter.

SR21 I suppose it depends on why the public school is talking about it a lot. A lot of kids need preparation for any sort of break in routine and I suspect there will be more of those kids at a public school than a private one. My daughter has friends who struggle with a relief teacher unless they have preparation, the idea of popping a written test in the planner and saying no more about it would lead to a meltdown and I think there would be a lot of kids in that situation.

I knew it was soon but had no idea its tomorrow. The school has not mentioned it at all, its not in the events calendar in the newsletter or anything. DD1 is aware of it though, she mentioned it yesterday. She didn’t say when it was happening though. I wouldn’t say they’ve been teaching to it from what I can tell, but it sounds like they spent some time preparing the kids for the process of it if that makes sense. DD1 is a little nervous, especially because she has so much trouble reading. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere we’ve been having trouble getting an appointment for a dyslexia assessment but from what I’ve read they don’t make any adjustments for it anyway. Does anyone know it thats true?

I have a year 9 doing it - he hates the idea and is likely experiencing anxiety over it. One of my girls is going to miss it as she isn’t well. Is that a problem?? The other I will be interested to see where she sits as I’m worried about her but keep being assured everything is fine.

I have the trifecta - my kids are in grade 3, 7 and 9 and are all sitting it! So I have definitely hewed about it. It has been pretty low key. Both schools have sent stuff around about the importance of getting a good night’s sleep and trying your best. I have an oppositional child that tells me he will answer all questions wrong because he does not want to do it. I have told him I don’t care about the results and the older kids have backed that up. I alternative between telling him it is important not to purposely put in wrong answers and telling him it is up to him what he does. I am in the midst of a learning disability around writing diagnosis, so I don’t blame him for not looking forward to it, particularly when writing is up tomorrow. And another child usually has some accommodations but the high school has not done his learning plan so looks like no extra time or quiet space for him this year 🙁. And my eldest will out pressure on herself to do well. I do Iike seeing the results as it is a clear snapshot around where my kids are at in comparison to others. If the youngest drives me crazy with his complaints, I will think about sitting him out.

I always withdraw my DD from it. I decided that back in Prep. She’s yr 5 this year. The school sent home the form for withdrawal last week when I requested it. I just had to sign and date it. The rest was filled out. DD has ASD and is on an individual curriculum plan so she hasn’t even covered the yr 5 material yet anyway. Apparently in Qld state schools the staff can’t suggest to parents that they can withdraw their child from Naplan testing but if they are asked directly about withdrawing they can answer the parent’s question and give them the information needed. I didn’t even realise it was so close to Naplan testing until I read about in the school newsletter and realised I hadn’t signed a withdrawal form yet. Like I said, the school can’t suggest withdrawal to a parent, even when they know my standing request is to withdraw her. The form was already prepared and waiting though, and sent home the next day. DD’s school doesn’t seem to GAF about Naplan testing. The children do one maybe two practise tests so they can be familiar with the procedure and structure of the testing but there’s no teaching to the Naplan test material. The school usually does pretty well anyway. The only time the testing has been useful was to see the increase in the reading/writing scores after the school introduced a new literacy programme. The scores went up significantly for both years 3 and 5.

PuddingPlease Understood. The kids have definitely been spoken to about it. And I know the y5 teacher has been getting them to do their literacy tasks on the computer this year because they have to do naplan writing on a computer so it’s not too big a change for them so that practical support for the kids is there. It’s more the parent communication I was referring to but I acknowledge I didn’t make that clear.

Naplan tomorrow