NAPLAN stress causes vomiting, insomnia

[Stick]

I think this is better, sooner or later, students are going to be exposed to high stakes testing, whether it be NAPLAN, VCE or university exams. Even after that the world is a cut throat place where you must compete. There's nothing wrong with competition itself. What's wrong is the way that teachers, students (and very often parents as well) take these high stakes exams. I think that's where the issue lies. But either way, the NAPLAN will prepare students for later exams such as VCE...etc.

I agree. I think some schools place extra pressure on their students for the sake of the school's "reputation" - many poorly-performing kids are often asked to stay at home on the day of the tests. These teachers seriously need to tone it down and help their students put things into perspective, and continue this through the schooling system.

[MJRomeo81]

NAPLAN results are nothing more than public perception. The students generally don't care since the test/s have no relative meaning to them. The teachers and students at my high school never bothered with NAPLAN at all. It makes me laugh how some schools spend a ridiculous amount of money on preparation and then think that a good rank == achievement/bragging rights, considering many schools don't even have enough funding for extensive NAPLAN preparation.

The results are therefore meaningless for most schools. Sure it's a good indication to determine which schools are in serious trouble, but the idea that people stress out over the NAPLAN is sad. Is this what we consider education? Completing dozens and dozens of artificial exercises in the lead up to a pretty meaningless exam? And then you have all these companies popping up exploiting teachers and parents insecurities to make some money.

[VivaTequila]

propaganda. i cared about naplan, but i seriously doubt that grade 3, 5, 7 and 9 year olds would care so much about the outcome of NAPLAN to the extent of getting sick over it.

[nosuperstar]

I was actually quite surprised to hear about preparing students with practice texts months prior to AIM tests, or NAPLAN's as they label it nowadays.

My school never prepared us for it and even now from hearing students from junior year levels discussing it, teachers don't even set it up properly, in all, I saw the tests to be of no true significance to me, and just hearing about children crying over it made me question how they would react at VCE level.

[Shenz0r]

At my school nobody took NAPLAN seriously... phones were out during Spelling and I was allowed to use my graphics calculator for maths lol (I heard from my friend that they were all given graphics calculators to do the maths part [Only one question was needed for it though])

What the...

Yes, but one of the issues with VCE is that students are suddenly exposed to high-stakes testing out of the blue. When you go to play poker, you don't go and sit at a high roller table on your first go, you'd probably start off by playing with friends, then move to placing bets and then gradually moving up at the casino starting from the $1/$2 games. It should be the same thing with high school, you can't just suddenly say "oh hey, these exams are the most important thing ever" when they're the first exams that really matter - students need to be introduced to the concept of exams from an early age and be prepared for the things that come.

At my school, we were introduced into "high-stakes exams" in Year 9, with mid-year exams for each of our subjects. Sure, they were nothing compared to VCE, but it introduced us to some good study routines, such as doing practise exams under conditions (yeah, I did past exams for my Year 9-10 exams, lol), and revising our content every so often.

If teachers want to make the challenge of VCE exams seem less daunting, then introduce some subject exams by the middle of high school, which actually do have a writing time of approximately 1.5-2 hours.

[slothpomba]

It makes me laugh how some schools spend a ridiculous amount of money on preparation and then think that a good rank == achievement/bragging rights, considering many schools don't even have enough funding for extensive NAPLAN preparation.

I'm not sure why kids and parents care about them so much (can you use them to get into good highschools or something? Idk) but theres a reason the schools care about it.

No school wants to have the infamy of having naplan scores near the bottom of the state.

NAPLAN scores are also posted on that "myschools" website where parents can compare schools. I'm sure many principals are worried about having low scores and that feeds down to the teachers as well.

[brenden]

Ah, Year 3 Aims Test, my first troll ever :')

[CaiTheHuman]

It makes me laugh how some schools spend a ridiculous amount of money on preparation and then think that a good rank == achievement/bragging rights, considering many schools don't even have enough funding for extensive NAPLAN preparation.

I'm not sure why kids and parents care about them so much (can you use them to get into good highschools or something? Idk) but theres a reason the schools care about it.

No school wants to have the infamy of having naplan scores near the bottom of the state.

NAPLAN scores are also posted on that "myschools" website where parents can compare schools. I'm sure many principals are worried about having low scores and that feeds down to the teachers as well.

My friend was able to get a 90% Scholarship to my old private school by showing said school his Naplan Results as well as other academic achievement results. It can significantly enhance your chances.

[slothpomba]

My friend was able to get a 90% Scholarship to my old private school by showing said school his Naplan Results as well as other academic achievement results. It can significantly enhance your chances.

Makes sense really. I don't see a way to fix that kind of thing though. If we suddenly scrap the NAPLAN, the same parents that would of pushed their kids to overdo it would just push them to do the same thing for the test that would conceivable replace it. The kind of parents that didn't really care about things like the testing/aims or getting scholarships before the NAPLAN will continue to do so anyway.

On another note, they might scrap the whole myschools thing (or at least not show the raw NAPLAN scores) http://www.theage.com.au/national/pyne-vows-to-scrap-my-school-rankings-20121126-2a3od.html .

[paulsterio]

I'm not sure why kids and parents care about them so much (can you use them to get into good highschools or something? Idk) but theres a reason the schools care about it.

No school wants to have the infamy of having naplan scores near the bottom of the state.

NAPLAN scores are also posted on that "myschools" website where parents can compare schools. I'm sure many principals are worried about having low scores and that feeds down to the teachers as well.

Parents care about it because it's a part of many parents' nature to want their kids to perform well on standardised tests, regardless of whether it matters - it's a source of bragging - "my child got in the 99th percentile for the NAPLAN test - lalala" and also because they feel a sense of pride and achievement in what they do.

Kids care about NAPLAN because their parents and teachers are forcing them to care. Seriously, kids don't give a shit about standardised testing.

I honestly don't have a problem with schools being ranked by NAPLAN scores, it's just how schools can also be ranked by other factors including VCE scores, %ge study scores above 40, average VCE study score, amount of government funding, quality of its buildings, whether its classrooms have air-con (I will never go to a school without air-con again, ever!). But you get the point, NAPLAN scores are only raw data, they mean little but are open to interpretation.

Parents are the source of all of these problems, often too ill-informed to interpret statistical data properly, they think that high NAPLAN scores = better school, but they forget to consider other facts and the truth is this is what needs to be changed, attitudes.

[MJRomeo81]

Studying for the NAPLAN defeats the purpose of it. By studying specifically for the NAPLAN you skew these results as they become a reflection of your child's ability to perform specifically for the test, rather than their general aptitude in the subject areas covered.

When 8 year olds are having panic attacks over simple weekly spelling tests as a result of the high-stakes environment surrounding NAPLAN, it's obvious something is seriously wrong with what we're doing. This is the true problem.

[availn]

About half the teachers surveyed said NAPLAN practice tests were held once a week in the five months leading up to the test.

Crap, that's harsher than VCE! This is where the problem is, what are they thinking?

[MJRomeo81]

BUMP:

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/schools-caught-cheating-on-naplan-20130216-2ek6p.html

Doesn't surprise me at all tbh.

[spectroscopy]

Would anyone think it's more towards the 'super top tiers' for that matter?

nope, go to a select entry and in year 9 the week before naplan we just got talked to a little bit about techniques and common mistakes in the test and that was the end of it, it wasnt a huge deal

[thushan]

nope, go to a select entry and in year 9 the week before naplan we just got talked to a little bit about techniques and common mistakes in the test and that was the end of it, it wasnt a huge deal

When I had NAPLAN...our school seems to regard it more as a nuisance than anything, like we were just told we had NAPLAN and we just did it...