Six-Year-Old Australian Students To Face Literacy and Numeracy Tests

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham has appointed a five-person panel to develop the new assessments for Year 1 students, who will show off their counting skills, ability in naming shapes and sounding out words under a “light touch” test to check their schooling progress.

The Year 1 tests may be based on assessments used in England that involve children verbally identifying letters and sounds in real and made up words, simple counting, recognising numbers, naming shapes and demonstrating basic measurement knowledge.

The panel will also consider how to implement the tests the best way possible, including a trial and when and how often they should be conducted.

The panel will then report back to the nation’s education ministers in the middle of this year, with the test coming before the NAPLAN system that measures students’ progress in years 3 to 9.

The skills tests came after several studies, including international comparisons, found that Australian children were falling behind, and since then Senator Birmingham has been pushing for these assessments.

Different reports have also shown that performance has been plateauing and there has already been an increasing gap between the most intelligent students and those struggling.

“These skills checks are not expected to be a confronting test but rather a light touch assessment that ensures teachers, parents and schools know at the earliest possible stage if children aren’t picking up reading or counting skills as quickly as they should, enabling them to intervene rapidly,” Senator Birmingham said on Sunday, adding that the country will no longer wait for the time when education results start to decline.

However, Deputy Labor Leader Tanya Plibersek told 7 News that students needed more funding, not more tests, attacking the Turnbull government for failing to strike a deal with the states on beyond this year.

“They don’t want to properly fund one-on-one teaching that would help those kids catch up. I think we need a resolution sooner rather than later,” she said.

Australian Education Union president Correna Haythorpe also doubts the tests will help lift literacy and numeracy standards if schools will not get resources to help struggling students.

Source: Au.news.yahoo.com