CaSPA Activities (January)

ACARA Meeting 28 January 2021

NAPLAN Improvement Review

Consultation with Peak Principal Associations to consider NAPLAN improvement options to be presented to the ACARA Board on 19 February and to the Education Ministers meeting in April 2021.

ACARA will prepare 4 packages of options for the Ministers. Options will be based on a continuum of minimal change to significant change. The options will also include possible Domains (eg: Science / IT / History / Civics & Citizenship) that may be included and which year levels will be included for the future. For example, it may be better to have the testing in Years 4, 6, 8, 10. These year levels are at the conclusion of the 2 year curriculum cycle.

There was some discussion about how to include elements of the Australian Curriculum in the writing tasks and how NAPLAN may look different at each year level. Writing tasks will be reviewed in terms of the genre, task and style required.

There was also a desire to avoid the “league tables” focus of the media. ACARA is considering a Unique Student Identifier (USI) where parents can login to see individual results and progress over the years.