A13: Balranald Branch (NSW)

There needs to be consistent consideration for the timing of NAPLAN testing that takes into account term 1 commencement dates including, when public and private schools begin operating. In NSW alone, there are 2 different start dates for when school begins, with Far West Schools starting a week later due to what is traditionally known as “Heat Week”. This can dramatically impact the valuable classroom time that children in all levels of education are receiving. Term 1 is generally disrupted by certain events across the board such as swimming carnivals, new staff inductions, principal handovers and other school orientated events.

In NSW in the Western area, there are some schools that operate on a 9 day fortnight for schooling due to the geographical isolation of these schools and in Term 1 before NAPLAN testing a school on this time schedule was only able to provide students with 13 days of actual education days, this in turn detrimentally affected the students ability to be able to be prepared for NAPLAN testing which results in inconsistent grading as compared to other students of this age.

The early testing method can not clearly demonstrate a student’s progress without taking into account all the time consuming and disrupting factors that have affected their learning progress in Term 1, it is also feasible to consider that a student that starts at least 2 weeks earlier than others in some states have some slight advantage to their counterparts starting at a later date in other areas and states.