From the Principal

Dear BMGS Families,

Are We Asking the Right Questions?

Another set of NAPLAN results, another outcry.

You may have noticed in the media over recent days that NAPLAN results have created some concerns. The ABC reported that one in three students are still not meeting literacy and numeracy benchmarks. At the same time, The Australian highlighted that one in ten children “need additional support to progress satisfactorily”. The Sydney Morning Herald concluded that the 2025 NAPLAN results will escalate the battle between Federal Education Minister Jason Clare and his State counterparts.

The most recent data paints a familiar — and troubling — picture: a steady national decline in foundational literacy and numeracy outcomes, particularly in writing. Understandably, this has prompted public concern. But as I read the headlines and scroll through the commentary, I can’t help but notice a familiar pattern: blame.

Blame the teachers. Blame the lounges and beanbags. Blame “modern methods.” Blame inquiry learning. Blame Project-based Learning (PBL). Blame staffing shortages.

But is that really where our focus should lie?

I have seen suggestions this week that the decline in student outcomes is the result of classrooms that look “too comfortable” — that somehow the presence of soft furniture is the reason eight-year-olds are struggling to construct a sentence. These arguments — while perhaps well-intentioned — reduce the issue to aesthetics rather than substance. These commentators yearn for a return to “yesteryear,” a time when order was presumed to equal rigour, and rigour was often confused with rigidity.

But I want to pose a different question: what if our students aren’t failing the system — what if the system is failing our students?

Because our children are no less capable than those of past generations, and our teachers are not less skilled or less committed — in fact, the demands placed on them have never been higher. Perhaps we need to look beyond the classroom walls and ask: What else has changed?

Some uncomfortable truths:

Parental reading rates are in decline: According to a 2022 ABS survey, only 32% of parents read to their children daily, down from 45% just a decade ago. And children who are read to regularly at home perform significantly better in literacy tasks.
Screen time has increased significantly: A 2023 Growing Up in Australia study found that children aged 6–13 now average 3.5 hours of screen time per day outside of school, much of which is passive and entertainment-based. This often replaces unstructured play, reading, or conversation, which are vital activities essential for developing thinking, learning and reasoning capacity.
Reading and writing for pleasure is diminishing: The most recent Australian Children’s Literacy Behaviour Report shows that less than 35% of children aged 8–14 report reading for enjoyment daily, and even fewer write outside of school. This is in sharp contrast to the habits of earlier generations.

What are we modelling?

This week, I was genuinely shocked when speaking with Junior School teachers from other schools and hearing that students as young as year 3 — just eight years old — were watching the series Squid Game. I have written about this before, and I am sure that our school is not immune to this either.

For context, Squid Game is rated MA15+ in Australia and features extreme violence, psychological distress, and mature themes including desperation, suicide, and exploitation. It is intentionally confronting — designed for adults. Exposure at such a young age isn’t just “too much, too soon” — it can profoundly affect a child’s sense of safety, empathy, and trust.

One teacher I spoke to from a school in the Northern Beaches told me that he observed his Junior School students role-playing scenes from Squid Game - scenes where the characters were murdered while playing children’s games.

Whether or not this is widespread, the fact that it’s happening at all is telling and deeply concerning. Suppose our children’s imaginative world is being shaped more by algorithm-driven content than by storybooks, conversation, or meaningful dialogue. What chance does NAPLAN really have to provide the necessary insights that it was designed to discover?

We have to ask not just how our students are learning, but what they’re immersed in — at home, online, and in the broader culture. If we want strong outcomes in literacy and numeracy, I contend that we cannot rely solely on schools as the sole agents of change.

A quick word on NAPLAN itself

At Blue Mountains Grammar School, our students again performed well in this year’s NAPLAN assessments — a credit to our dedicated staff and committed families. However, even as we celebrate strong results, I would like to offer a word of caution.

NAPLAN was never designed to rank schools.

Long before NAPLAN — back in the era of the NSW Basic Skills Test — these assessments were intended to be diagnostic. A snapshot. A check-in to see how students were progressing in foundational skills, so that teachers could tailor their instruction and intervene where necessary to ensure student learning didn’t stall. It was designed to provide a standard scale for assessing student performance and identifying areas of strength and weakness.

Unfortunately, in recent years, NAPLAN data has too often been weaponised — used to compare schools, judge cohorts, and feed league tables that do little more than amplify anxiety. When governments, media outlets, and school systems use this data to sort and rank, they add an unnecessary and harmful layer of pressure to our youngest learners. And worse still, they risk turning assessment into something students fear, rather than a tool that helps teachers nurture growth and development.

How Did We Get Here?

Examining the subtle stories we tell about learning, it is interesting to note that we are creating conditions that make it difficult for young people to commit fully to learning.

In Australia, when leasing a commercial office, the building codes require a minimum of 10 square metres of space per person. It is a zoning standard designed to ensure adults have sufficient space to focus, collaborate, and move freely — a recognition that our environment significantly impacts our productivity.

Now consider a standard classroom.

In schools, children — the most energetic, movement-hungry humans among us — are often allocated as little as 1.5 square metres per student. That is the funded ratio when applying for a government grant. No room to stretch, no space to fidget, and certainly not enough to move freely or think expansively.

This contradiction isn’t just mathematical — it’s philosophical.

Children, whose learning thrives on movement, play, exploration and interaction, are told to sit still and be quiet. Over time, the conditions for learning were gradually reduced to compliance and containment, rather than curiosity and engagement.

This is just one example where 'the system' seems to overlook the human side of the equation.

What Are Our Young People Asking For?

I recently watched a TEDx talk and noticed that as I listened, I was smiling. The talk was delivered by ten-year-old Brody Gray. When he spoke, I did not just hear a child’s voice, but perhaps the quiet call of a generation. With clarity and conviction, Brody reminded adults that learning does not just happen inside a classroom. Sometimes, the best classrooms are under open skies, built from sticks, stumps, and imagination.

He describes recess not as a break, but as a gateway to creativity, cooperation, problem-solving, and deep learning. A stick becomes a spaceship key: a tree stump, a portal to another world. There are no rule books, no umpires—just freedom to imagine, invent, and play.

And it is not just poetic—it is backed by research. Brody cites findings from Charles Hillman and Last Child in the Woods, highlighting that students who are physically active and connected to nature perform better academically, especially in maths. Creativity increases by 50% outdoors. Even mental health improves—for children and adults alike.

However, there is a sobering contrast: young people today receive only about 30 minutes of outdoor play each day, half of what children had just two decades ago. That loss is not just about movement—it is a loss of agency, curiosity, and joy.

A Hopeful Future Starts With Our Belief

What Brody is saying is this: believe in us. Give us space. Trust that we are capable of something special.

Here at BMGS, we believe he is right. If we, as adults, schools, and communities, respond to this call, not with more control, but with more belief, we can create the conditions for children to thrive. We can choose learning that is joyful and whole, that blends intellect with imagination, movement with meaning.

Because if a ten-year-old can stand on a stage and spark a vision for better learning, then we can stand beside him and help make it real.

Let’s get serious about the real challenge.

The system is still built on outdated assumptions about standardised progression. Assessment frameworks are often divorced from real-world applications. And pedagogical innovation is frequently stifled by bureaucratic inertia.

Research and discovery in the field of neuroscience are also critical for our learners. Given what neuroscience has revealed over the past two decades about how the brain develops and how learning occurs — particularly in relation to attention, emotion, memory, and stress — it would be remiss of us to ignore these findings. We now know that enriched, safe, and emotionally attuned environments are not just beneficial but essential for effective learning.

The answer is not nostalgia. Nor is it to retreat to a system that served a different time and a different body of knowledge. Instead, we need to evolve — courageously and intelligently — in ways that reflect what we now know about how young people grow, learn, and thrive.

I want to stop blaming the furniture.

I prefer to begin redesigning the system.

How do we support parents, how do we inspire readers, how do we build attention spans, and how do we reconnect young people to joy, meaning and purpose in their learning?

Because if we want better results, we’ll need more than just better tests.

We’ll need a better conversation.

Warm regards

Steven Coote

Principal

This document has been reviewed for spelling and grammar. Please note that as such, it may identify some content as being generated by AI.