Student assessment resources and teaching strategies

In 2022, Australian Education Ministers agreed to improvements to the National Assessment Program –Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) giving teachers the additional information they need about student performance earlier in the year.

From 2023, NAPLAN, which traditionally has been held in Term 2 of the school year, will be held in Term 1.

2023 NAPLAN will be held in Term 1 from Wednesday 15 March to Monday 27 March 2023.

Dates for NAPLAN from 2024 onwards are available on the NESA website.

Bringing the NAPLAN test forward puts information in teachers’ hands sooner, allowing for more targeted support for students to ensure they are gaining important literacy and numeracy skills.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), state and territory education departments, and non-government school authorities will continue to work with schools and systems to ensure they are well prepared for the change.

Catholic Schools New South Wales continues to work with NESA and the other education sectors to prepare for participation in the delivery of NAPLAN in Catholic schools. For further information, please visit the NESA website here.

The national assessment program literacy and numeracy (NAPLAN) tests changed from paper to online assessment in 2022 for all Australian schools. The move to NAPLAN as an online test brings benefits for schools, students and teachers.

Benefits

Significant planning, research and trialling has been ongoing since 2012 to support the move to NAPLAN Online. Online testing creates new opportunities that are not possible with paper tests.

• NAPLAN Online provides better assessment, more precise results and faster turnaround of information.
• Most students find online assessment more engaging.
• NAPLAN Online uses tailored testing, which gives students questions better suited to their ability, resulting in more detailed individual assessment.
• Online assessment reduces the time it takes to mark and provide feedback to schools and teachers.
• The precision and improved timing of the results helps teachers streamline their teaching more specifically to student needs.

For further information about NAPLAN  visit the ACARA website.

Tailored Testing

The move to NAPLAN online enables the use of tailored testing.

Instead of the static approach of the paper NAPLAN tests, tailored tests give students questions that are better suited to their ability, resulting in better assessment and more precise results.

In NAPLAN online, students attempt the same number of questions in the same amount of time as in paper NAPLAN. Based on their responses, tailored testing provides questions more aligned to individual ability, providing teachers with more detailed information about what each student can do, rather than what they cannot do.

The ACARA tailored testing provides information that explains what tailored testing is and research that supports its use in NAPLAN online.

Student Reports

NAPLAN online will deliver more detailed information about each student’s performance. Due to the adaptive nature of tailored tests, students can better demonstrate what they know, rather than what they don’t know.

Schools will access a new student and school summary report very soon after the tests have finished. This provides detailed feedback on how students within a school perform in NAPLAN and will be available within weeks of the close of the test window.

With NAPLAN, parents and carers will continue to receive individual student reports.

Every child enters school with their own set of experiences, skills and abilities. These skills form a foundation for future learning and students need to develop these skills to be able to communicate complex ideas, think critically and engage with the world.

The Best Start Kindergarten Assessment (BSKA) provides teachers with the opportunity to sit with a child one on one, focusing on what that child can do. This provides the teacher with another rich source of information on how to best support that child’s next steps

Best Start Kindergarten Assessment (BSKA) allows schools to enter student information during the first 5 weeks of school via an online NSW Department of Education tool, referred to as PLAN2. The BSKA items are auto-mapped in PLAN2 to the Literacy and Numeracy Progressions and the revised NSW K-2 English and Mathematics syllabus documents and are available for analysis by the teacher.

Data that is generated by the assessment may be used to inform families about their child’s early literacy and numeracy development.

Online professional learning will be available to assist with the administration of the assessment and the analysis of the students results.

The BSKA is available as an opt-in assessment for non-government schools. Calls for registration for participation in BSKA open in October each year.

For more information regarding accessing BSKA and/or PLAN2 please contact karen.ferrante@csnsw.catholic.edu.au

Students start secondary school with different skills and abilities in literacy and numeracy. It is important that Year 7 teachers have access to information about their new students, to plan their teaching accordingly.

What is Transition to Year 7?

The Transition to Year 7 assessment is an optional online literacy and numeracy assessment for select students on entry to Year 7. It includes two online assessments:

• reading assessment
• numeracy assessment

Online diagnostic science assessments for students in Years 6, 8 and 10. The program provides online end-of-stage assessments for the science key learning area.

Three assessments packages are available and are offered to all NSW Catholic schools on an opt-in fee for service basis.:

• VALID Science & Technology for Year 6
• VALID Science for Year 8
• VALID Science for Year 10

Schools with students in Years 6/8/10 can participate by registering their full cohort. Teachers at the registered schools will participate in 5 hours of NESA registered professional learning and then mark the extended response tasks for their school.

Register your school for VALID

Registration in the VALID program provides:

• high quality syllabus-based assessment frameworks that describe levels of achievement against standards to inform school-based assessment practices
• online multimedia assessment tools that provide diagnostic data and time efficient reports to inform planning, programming and assessment across learning stages
• cohort level affective domain data from interest and engagement survey questions within each assessment
• five hours of NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) registered training that reinforces staff capability in making consistent judgements against syllabus standards
• systems and processes to monitor student achievement of syllabus outcomes and content across stages
• external student assessment data that can be used in combination with school-based assessments to inform whole school planning processes.

The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check is an opportunity for students to demonstrate what they know and can do when blending sounds together to read words.

What you need to know

The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check (PSC) is an optional online reading and numeracy assessment available to Catholic Schools NSW with a Year 1 student cohort in term 3. Registration for participation in the PSC opens in mid-term 2 each year.

The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check is a short assessment that provides teachers with an overview of a students’ progress in phonics. This information helps teachers make decisions during the teaching and learning cycle.

The PSC assesses the phonic knowledge and skills a student has learnt to blend sounds together to read a word.

How will the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check be administered?

The online assessment takes 5 – 7 minutes and is carried out by classroom teachers with each student individually.

The PSC allows schools to enter student information during the first 5 weeks of term 3 via an online NSW Department of Education tool, referred to as PLAN2. The PSC assessment items are auto-mapped in PLAN2 to the Literacy and Numeracy Progressions and the revised NSW K-2 English and Mathematics syllabus documents and are available for analysis by the teacher.

Literacy

Resources to use in conjunction with the results of NAPLAN to identify areas of development in reading, writing and language conventions.

The aim of English in Years K–10 is to enable students to understand and use language effectively, appreciate, reflect on and enjoy the English language and to make meaning in ways that are imaginative, creative, interpretive, critical and powerful.

NAPLAN tests help identify students’ literacy skills and trends within schools, grades and cohorts. Students are assessed using common national tests in Reading, Writing and Language Conventions (spelling, grammar and punctuation). Teachers use NAPLAN results as part of a suite of assessment opportunities to build up a summary of student achievement aiding in identification of students who may require greater challenges or additional support.

The resources contained in the web-links/ hyperlinks and apps are to be used after evaluation by the teacher. The resources in Scout (NAPLAN analytics package produced by DoE and available to all NSW schools) are research based and reflect current directions such as:

• the quality teaching model
• the modelled, guided and independent teaching cycle
• the NSW English syllabus for the Australian curriculum K–10: outcomes and objectives

The Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) data helps schools plan for the needs of children arriving at school. It assists schools in identifying areas where children and families in the community need additional support to achieve positive outcomes in the areas of:

• Physical Health and Wellbeing
• Social Competence
• Emotional Maturity
• Language and Cognitive Skills (school-based)
• Communication Skills and General Knowledge

Public data can be found here: www.aedc.gov.au/data-explorer