NSW Education Department secretary Murat Dizdar said schools will no longer be given top two band NAPLAN targets,but will be asked to include “growth measures” in school improvement plans.Credit:Dion Georgopoulos
“Having targets for the top two NAPLAN bands did not capture improvement of all students. A growth measure will better capture if all children at a school are moving forward,” Dizdar said.
But critics warn allowing principals to choose from a range of assessment metrics to set their own improvement measures could dilute accountability and make it harder for parents to track how schools are performing.
The top two band “stretch targets” were introducedas part of the School Success Model under the previous Coalition government in 2020. The policy was criticised by principals who said a focus on the top band targets was demotivating and failed to account for student complexity.
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Under changes as part of the state government’s plan for public education,the model will be abolished and schools will now report on improvement – or growth – measures for four key areas:reading,numeracy,attendance and post-school pathways.
“As a former principal,the best measure of worth of an impact of a school is if they’re able to move every child forward,” Dizdar said.
Schools can choose from a range of metrics - such as check-in assessment data or student report data – to determine the improvement measures which will vary for each school depending on its circumstances. From next year,schools will have the option of including NAPLAN data in growth measures.