College Head of Learning

NAPLAN Testing

Online NAPLAN testing has run very smoothly this week at Aitken College. I am extremely proud of the way our students have conducted themselves during the tests so far. They have been overwhelmingly well behaved and have concentrated hard to make the most of their allocated test time and perform at their best. This is no easy feat, given how difficult it is for children to keep completely silent for extended periods of time, while answering challenging questions for an external testing program. I am also very pleased with the patience the students have shown during the administration and log-in time at the beginning of each test, and the calm manner they have displayed during and after each test.

You may be aware of some media reports earlier this week about the instability of the Online NAPLAN testing platform and the difficulties many schools around the country were experiencing on the first day of testing. We did have a few issues with 12 Year 9 students out of 60 being unable to connect to the NAPLAN server on Tuesday in the 9am test session, but since then we have had a 100% success rate with all students who were at school being able to access and complete their scheduled online tests. The 12 students affected on Tuesday have already completed a catch-up test session and are now on schedule to complete the remaining three tests with their classmates.

Can I please ask that parents keep their children away from school if they are ill, even if they have NAPLAN tests scheduled? We have had a small number of children come to school despite being ill this week, just so they could complete the tests. While this shows a really positive attitude towards the importance of academic achievement, it usually means the children don’t do their best as they are too sick to perform at their usual level. We have catch-up sessions available for all NAPLAN tests until the end of next week (Friday 24 May), so it is much better for the students and their NAPLAN results to stay at home until they are well, then do catch-up tests when they return to school, able to concentrate fully.

Thank you to all parents who have reassured their children about any NAPLAN-related anxiety. I would also like to give an enormous and public thank you to the staff who have worked so hard to ensure NAPLAN has run smoothly this year: Ms Pauline Malkoun, Ms Marisa Long and all of our IT staff.

NAPLAN results will be mailed home to parents of students in Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 as soon as they become available late in Term 3.

Ms Kerri Batch

College Head of Learning