A Message From Anna 

"Whoa, we're (almost) halfway there!"

Our School-Wide Positive Behaviour approach is really 'taking off' this term! Students are 'flying' towards our target of 40 Birds to earn a Whole-School Celebration Day! 

Our 2025 Junior School Councillors will be announced at Assembly tomorrow morning, which is just in time for them to receive suggestions for what our next Celebration Day should look like. Some of our recent Celebration Days have included a Zowie Day and Ice Cream Day, so students will have to think hard about a new idea for this term. Parents, feel free to chat with your children about this, and help them come up with suggestions!

Chick and Bird Tally:

Compassion - 1 Chick + 5 Birds = 320 eggs!

Courage - 6 Chicks + 2 Birds = 130 eggs!

Ambition - 7 Chicks + 6 Birds = 440 eggs!

Creativity - 2 Chicks + 2 Birds = 120 eggs!

Welcome Picnic

Please come along and enjoy each other's company at our school Welcome Picnic today - 5pm-7pm! 

We cannot wait to see everyone and enjoy a relaxing dinner with you all. Hope to see you there!

We're BACK on socials! 

We look forward to sharing our Box Hill North Primary School and Kindergarten LEARNING and EVENTS with our followers! If you haven't yet, please like and follow our Facebook and Instagram pages to keep an eye on the curious learning our students get up to during the school day. 

Please make sure you're interacting (liking, commenting, sharing) with our posts, so we know what sorts of things you want to see more or less of!

Instagram - @bhnpsk

Facebook - Box Hill North Primary School and Kindergarten

District Swimming

Good luck to all the students heading to District Swimming on Wednesday, where they will compete against students from other schools in our district. We wish them all the very best of luck!

NAPLAN

In a few weeks, our Year 3 and 5 students will sit the National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). Students will be assessed for their Reading, Writing, Language Conventions and Numeracy skills. NAPLAN is the only nationally consistent assessment for Australian students, which enables us to compare Victorian student abilities with those in other states and territories. 

Student achievement in NAPLAN is reported using proficiency standards for each assessment area at each year level. The standards are set at a challenging but reasonable expectation of what students know and can do at the time of testing. Since 2023, there have been FOUR proficiency levels: 

• Exceeding: the student’s result exceeds expectations at the time of testing. 
• Strong: the student’s result meets challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing. 
• Developing: the student’s result indicates that they are working towards expectations at the time of testing.
• Needs additional support: the student’s result indicates that they are not achieving the learning outcomes that are expected at the time of testing. They are likely to need additional support to progress satisfactorily.

This year will be the first year that STUDENT PROGRESS results will be available for our Year 5 students, as they are the first cohort to have been marked within the four proficiency standards in Year 3, 2023. We look forward to seeing how much they have learned in the last two years!

More information about each of the NAPLAN assessments:

Reading

In the English learning area of the Australian Curriculum, students develop language and literacy skills and then apply these skills across a full range of learning areas. The NAPLAN reading tests measure literacy proficiency across the English learning area in line with the Australian Curriculum: English.

These tests focus on the reading of written English. Knowledge and interpretation of language conventions in context are also an important part of reading and are drawn upon in many reading questions.

In the tests, students are provided with a range of texts that illustrate different writing styles. Students read the texts and answer related questions. The tests contain multiple-choice and technology-enhanced questions such as drag-and-drop and hot-text. The Public demonstration site shows the range of item types, along with accessibility features available to students with disability.    

Typically, students are able to engage with more complex texts as their reading comprehension skills improve. As there is a very wide range of reading ability levels at each school year level, the texts range from short and simple to longer and more complex. The complexity of the texts that a student sees is dependent on the pathway they take through the tailored test design.

Writing

The Australian Curriculum: English requires students to be taught a variety of forms of writing. The 3 main text types (previously called genres) taught are imaginative writing (including narrative writing), informative writing and persuasive writing. In the writing test, all students receive the same text type or genre of writing task regardless of whether they are a Year 3 student doing the test on paper or a student in Year 5, 7 or 9 doing the test online.

In the writing test, students are provided with a ‘writing stimulus’ (also called a ‘prompt’ – an idea or topic) and asked to write a response in a particular text type. Different prompts are used depending on the testing day and student year level. These writing prompts target the full range of student capabilities expected of students from Years 3 to 9.

The use of multiple prompts should have no impact on how teachers prepare their students for the NAPLAN writing test. The text type – which could be narrative or persuasive – is revealed on the day of assessment. There is no choice of text type. See examples of persuasive and narrative prompts below. An example prompt is also shown in the Public demonstration site writing test for Years 5, 7 and 9. See NAPLAN – writing test FAQs for more information. 

Assessing the writing task

Students’ writing is marked by assessors who have received intensive training in applying the marking rubric (guide), which has 10 criteria. Test administration authorities in each state and territory are responsible for the marking of the writing tests within their jurisdictions. All markers across Australia use the same marking rubric, receive the same training and are subject to the same quality assurance measures.

The writing marking guides for both persuasive and narrative writing are below, with an example prompt. See the ACARA website for a greater selection of past NAPLAN writing prompts.

Persuasive writing

The Persuasive Writing Marking Guide (PDF 5.7 MB) and an example Writing stimulus (PDF 406 KB) are available for download. Note: the Persuasive writing marking guide for 2013 remains current.

Narrative writing 

The Narrative Writing Marking Guide (PDF 8 MB) and an example Writing stimulus (PDF 981 KB) are available for download. Note: the Narrative writing marking guide for 2010 remains current.

Conventions of language

The conventions of language tests assess spelling, grammar and punctuation. Literacy knowledge and skills are essential to effective communication across all learning areas. However, the tools of language, including the conventions of language, are explicitly developed in the English learning area. Therefore, the content assessed in the conventions of language tests is aligned to the Australian Curriculum: English.

The conventions of language tests focus on the use and knowledge of written standard Australian English. These skills are essential to the development of reading and writing. The content of the tests complements the writing tests where spelling, grammar and punctuation are explicitly assessed in context. However, students’ understanding of the conventions of language is also necessary for reading. The tests contain multiple-choice, text entry and technology-enhanced questions such as drag-and-drop and hot-text. The Public demonstration site has a range of item types along with accessibility features for students with disability.

Numeracy

The NAPLAN numeracy tests measure the achievement of students in numeracy, including mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding as outlined in the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics. The numeracy tests assess the proficiency strands of understanding, fluency, problem-solving and reasoning across the 3 content strands of mathematics: number and algebra, measurement and geometry, and statistics and probability.

The numeracy tests contain multiple-choice, text entry and technology-enhanced questions such as drag-and-drop and hot-text. The Public demonstration site shows the type of items that may appear in the numeracy test as well as the accessibility features regularly accessed by students.

Anna Johnstone

Principal