EVERY year, NAPLAN tests provide a snapshot of how students are performing in Australian schools. The scores shed light on what students know, and how this varies across Australia.
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Changes over time allow us to see whether performance has improved or stagnated among schools and individual students.
But we don't want this information for the sake of interest. We want it to lead to better learning. Unfortunately, preliminary results for 2015 don't bring a lot to cheer for most states.
Since the first NAPLAN tests in 2008, results in Queensland and Western Australia have improved for most year levels and most subjects.
Yet the only areas of substantial improvement are in reading and grammar in year three in Queensland – no doubt helped by the introduction of a prep year in 2007.
In other states, the only glimpses of improvement are in year three reading and year five numeracy. The percentage of year nine students who meet minimum standards has stayed largely static.
It is easy to analyse NAPLAN results, much harder to improve them. You don't fatten a pig by weighing it. NAPLAN data can't tell governments what to do next.
If NAPLAN results are to improve, we need to improve student learning. Tinkering with school autonomy or lifting community engagement, for example, will do nothing unless it improves student learning.
Grattan Institute's latest report, Targeted Teaching, shows that the most effective way to improve learning in the classroom is to target teaching to every student. This represents a significant change from business as usual in many classrooms, particularly in secondary schools.
But as the NAPLAN results make clear, business as usual is not producing the outcomes we want.
The typical classroom has a widespread of achievement – five to eight year levels between the strongest and weakest students, on average. In a year 7 maths class, for example, there may be students working at a year 1 level while others have mastered concepts from year 8.
This spread makes it imperative to move beyond a one-size-fits-all model, in which the same year-level curriculum is covered regardless of whether it makes sense for each student. Unfortunately, this model is all too common in many schools.
Neither teachers nor schools can make these changes on their own. Governments must provide guidance and support, including the time, tools and training that teachers and schools need to adjust their approach.
Change will take time, and sustained effort. A new approach to teaching the five-year-olds who start school in 2016 won't show up in year three NAPLAN results until 2019 or in year nine results until 2025.
We do know that if we keep doing the same things, we are likely to get the same outcomes. For the sake of our children, we need a better approach.
