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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Friday,

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Speaker 2: the seventeenth of March. I'm sam i'm zara. Students around

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Speaker 2: the country have begun NAPLAN testing now. According to an

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Speaker 2: Australian Education Union survey from twenty twenty one, sixty two

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Speaker 2: percent of teachers say naplan is an ineffective diagnostic tool,

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Speaker 2: but those who use Naplan results to inform education reform

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Speaker 2: say it provides important insight into how kids are doing

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Speaker 2: at school and that a sharp decline in students doing

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Speaker 2: the test is a cause for concern parents.

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Speaker 3: Who is drawing their kids from the test?

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Speaker 4: And it's happening and increasing numbers, and it's happening increasingly

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Speaker 4: for the most disadvantaged students in our schools.

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Speaker 2: So what does this all mean? And how useful is

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Speaker 2: naplan data? To begin with, Doctor Jenny Donovan from the

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Speaker 2: Australian Education Research Organization is going to be joining me

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Speaker 2: on the pod today in the deep dive. But first hour,

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Speaker 2: let's do the headlines.

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Speaker 5: Latitude Financial Services has been the target of a cyber attack,

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Speaker 5: resulting in the theft of over three hundred thousand documents

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Speaker 5: and customer records. The breach occurred earlier this week and

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Speaker 5: was announced in a letter to the Australian Securities Exchange,

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Speaker 5: with Latitude entering a trading halt following the announcement.

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Speaker 2: Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi has dismissed former Labour Prime Minister

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Speaker 2: Paul Keating's claims leveled at the Orcust nuclear submarine deal.

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Speaker 2: Keating called the deal a mistake and one of the

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Speaker 2: worst deals in history. During an address to the National

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Speaker 2: Press Club on Wednesday, Albanezi said Keating's comments were unfortunate

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Speaker 2: and diminished him.

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Speaker 5: Cyclone Freddy has begun to wane in southeastern Africa after

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Speaker 5: killing at least two hundred and forty six people in

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Speaker 5: Malawi and Mozambique. It made landfall in Africa for a

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Speaker 5: second time on the weekend Yuna said they're mobilizing teams

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Speaker 5: to help with the recovery effort.

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Speaker 2: And today's good news, NASA has unveiled new spacesuits for

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Speaker 2: its future missions that will see the first woman and

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Speaker 2: person of color land on the Moon. The new suits

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Speaker 2: allow for greater flexibility and range of motion to explore

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Speaker 2: lunar landscapes and bit of yoga on the Moon, and

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Speaker 2: can accommodate a broader range of crew members. They'll be

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Speaker 2: trialed in a spacelike environment before being used on any missions.

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Speaker 2: As students around the country sit down to do their

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Speaker 2: naplan tests, I remember mine. I wanted to know what

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Speaker 2: this test is all about, particularly what purpose it serves,

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Speaker 2: and if we should be worried about the decline in

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Speaker 2: high school students actually doing the test. To help have

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Speaker 2: this discussion, I'm joined this morning by doctor Jenny Donovan.

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Speaker 2: She's the Chief executive officer at the Australian Education Research

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Speaker 2: Organization also known as AERO. Can you start by telling

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Speaker 2: us a little bit about ERO and what it does.

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Speaker 4: ERO was a decision that all of the education ministers

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Speaker 4: made a couple of years ago. We have nine education

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Speaker 4: ministers in this relatively small population country. For all of

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Speaker 4: them to agree on anything is always quite the coup.

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Speaker 4: They decided that they needed to have an agency that

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Speaker 4: would be in a good position to provide advice about

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Speaker 4: the best research and the evidence that supports best practice

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Speaker 4: in education.

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Speaker 3: They had a.

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Speaker 4: Sense that there were things that were not improving and

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Speaker 4: we wanted to see improve things like the equity gap,

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Speaker 4: the sense that students learning is in decline. So we're

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Speaker 4: not quite two years old yet, but we are hard.

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Speaker 2: What function does naplan play for you in your NAP plan?

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Speaker 4: Ministers agreed on creating naplan over a decade ago. It's

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Speaker 4: been around for quite a long time now, and their

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Speaker 4: intention then as it is now, was to make sure

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Speaker 4: we've got an opportunity every year to just check on

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Speaker 4: how students are going in relation to the basic skills

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Speaker 4: that they need to be able to learn. You know,

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Speaker 4: there's lots of subjects in the curriculum, but literacy and

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Speaker 4: numeracy underpin all of them at some point and in

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Speaker 4: some way. So ten years ago they developed this test.

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Speaker 4: It's done by all students in years three, five, seven,

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Speaker 4: and nine every year and when they get reports, it

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Speaker 4: shows what their strengths are, what are the areas where

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Speaker 4: they need further attention. Mostly none of that's news to

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Speaker 4: their teachers. They're pretty much across how things are going.

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Speaker 4: But it provides an opportunity for a bit of a

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Speaker 4: safety net at the school level and for the individual

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Speaker 4: and for the system. It gives us a sense, so

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Speaker 4: are we improving.

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Speaker 3: Some of the things that we're doing.

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Speaker 4: The programs that we're putting in place, are they working

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Speaker 4: to mean that our students' literacy skills are getting stronger,

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Speaker 4: their numerous these skills are improving, et cetera. And the

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Speaker 4: troubling insight that it gives us year after year is

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Speaker 4: actually probably not. For some groups in the population, their

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Speaker 4: achievement is declining. And for many students, the evidence from

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Speaker 4: nap plan suggests that it's in plateau.

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Speaker 3: It's staying stable. We want to see improvement.

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Speaker 2: I want to come back to some of those macro

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Speaker 2: trends in a second, because I think they're really important

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Speaker 2: to try and understand some of the root causes behind

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Speaker 2: that plateau. But first I wanted to ask you. So

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Speaker 2: we've got a lot of teachers who listen to this podcast,

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Speaker 2: and we know the Australian Education Union, do the survey

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Speaker 2: of public school educators, who said that eighty six percent

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Speaker 2: of principles say that naplan contributes to students' stress and anxiety,

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Speaker 2: and sixty two percent of teachers say that napland's ineffective

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Speaker 2: in being diagnosis tool. For teachers, speaking directly to those teachers,

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Speaker 2: what's the kind of response from error on that look.

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Speaker 3: Er doesn't create nap plan or administer it.

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Speaker 4: That happens from another agency, But as you said at

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Speaker 4: the outset, we are consumers of that data. It's really

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Speaker 4: important to us to help us give insights into how

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Speaker 4: we're traveling as a nation.

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Speaker 3: I would say.

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Speaker 4: To principles, if students are getting really anxious about napplan,

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Speaker 4: then it's on them to help support the students and

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Speaker 4: understand that the anxiety is not called for this. This

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Speaker 4: is just part of school. They do tests at school

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Speaker 4: all the time, and this is one that's actually pretty

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Speaker 4: light touch. It's very easy to access, and the message

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Speaker 4: overwhelmingly from the school should be it's about giving us

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Speaker 4: information that will help us support you to learn. For teachers,

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Speaker 4: I'd say that they have had a real a good

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Speaker 4: point that nap plan hasn't been as helpful to them

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Speaker 4: as it could and should be, because it was being

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Speaker 4: conducted in May and results when coming through until July August,

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Speaker 4: and it's kind of too late in the school year

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Speaker 4: to do a whole lot with it, and there's a

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Speaker 4: big gap between the test date and the results.

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Speaker 3: That's changed as of this year.

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Speaker 4: The students are doing NAP plan right now in the

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Speaker 4: first term of the new school year, and the reporting

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Speaker 4: from it will be available so much quicker. So I

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Speaker 4: think teachers will find that actually it does help them

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Speaker 4: to get a sense early in the school year about

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Speaker 4: where the students are in their learning, and that means

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Speaker 4: that they're able to target the areas that need attention

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Speaker 4: much sooner.

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Speaker 2: But teachers might say, though, that part of the problem

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Speaker 2: here is acting on that land results when they have

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Speaker 2: these immense workloads and they're under resourced.

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Speaker 4: You're right to point to the workload, the time pressures,

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Speaker 4: et cetera. And this is a challenge for us that

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Speaker 4: we want to get a message out to teachers that

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Speaker 4: we know that you're trying to do the best by

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Speaker 4: your students, but there may be aspects of war what

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Speaker 4: you're doing at the moment that aren't as effected as

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Speaker 4: you hope, and we'd like you to try something different.

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Speaker 4: That's a really hard message to a time poor teacher.

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Speaker 4: So a message also has to be to the departments.

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Speaker 4: You've got to make the time for them. You've got

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Speaker 4: to carve out space for good professional learning, for coaching,

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Speaker 4: for support, etc.

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Speaker 2: Jennie, one more area I'd love to talk to you

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Speaker 2: about before we wrap up. Last year saw a steep

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Speaker 2: decline in NAPLAN attendance amongst high schoolers, and I know

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Speaker 2: that Aero has spent a little bit of time thinking

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Speaker 2: about why that might be. What reasons can you share

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Speaker 2: with us for this sharp decline into hinlantims.

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Speaker 4: Last year was a really odd year in terms of

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Speaker 4: attendance and absenteeism. A much larger proportion of students did

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Speaker 4: not participate in the tests, and that was particularly pronounced

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Speaker 4: for secondary school students and especially for year nine. Now,

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Speaker 4: last year was weird because we were still coming out

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Speaker 4: of COVID flu was really bad. We had floods in

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Speaker 4: Queensland and New South Wales. There were lots of reasons

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Speaker 4: why kids may not actually have been able to get

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Speaker 4: to school. Our bigger concern was the participation rate in

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Speaker 4: relation to the proportion of students who are been withdrawn

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Speaker 4: from the tests. So it wasn't that they weren't even

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Speaker 4: at school and couldn't do them. They were at school,

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Speaker 4: they just didn't do them because their parents said, I

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Speaker 4: don't want my kid to do in that plan.

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Speaker 2: That's really interesting. Parents are withdrawing their kids from the test.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, parents are withdrawing their kids from the test, and

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Speaker 4: it's happening in increasing numbers, and it's happening increasingly for

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Speaker 4: the most disadvantaged students in our schools. So we've set

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Speaker 4: up this bizarre scenario where the tests are meant to

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Speaker 4: help identify what those kids need, and in increasing numbers,

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Speaker 4: those kids are not.

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Speaker 3: Doing the tests.

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Speaker 2: What reason their parents giving for actually pulling their kids

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Speaker 2: out of tests?

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Speaker 4: I think what's behind it is an overworked sense of

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Speaker 4: concern about students' anxiety levels. Where we began in the conversation,

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Speaker 4: They don't have a good understanding of what is the

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Speaker 4: information that can come from that plan and how can

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Speaker 4: it help support your child in their learning, So there's

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Speaker 4: an increased tendency to say, oh, that'll be a waste

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Speaker 4: of time, so you don't have to do it. I

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Speaker 4: think it's misguided and I think schools need to step

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Speaker 4: into the breach here and make sure that parents really

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Speaker 4: do understand there is benefit to your children in doing

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Speaker 4: this assessment. Off the back of it, this is what

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Speaker 4: we are going to do, what teachers will do, and

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Speaker 4: what the school will offer, and the entire system needs

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Speaker 4: this information because it helps with the way resources get targeted,

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Speaker 4: programs get promoted, etc.

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Speaker 3: The last thing we want to see.

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Speaker 4: Is the very students who need the most support being

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Speaker 4: withdrawn and running the risk of not getting the help

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Speaker 4: that they should have.

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Speaker 2: Jenny, leave us some good news, leave us feeling hopeful

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Speaker 2: about the state of education in Australia.

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Speaker 4: That's easy. The good news is we know exactly how

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Speaker 4: to fix this. We know how to make sure every

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Speaker 4: child can read and read well. We know how to

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Speaker 4: make sure every child can write, can do numeracy. We

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Speaker 4: absolutely know what to do. The evidence is so strong.

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Speaker 4: The thing that is on me and the systems, the departments,

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Speaker 4: the ministers is to make sure that knowledge is available

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Speaker 4: to all of the teachers throughout across the country, including

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Speaker 4: the teachers who are still in training or thinking about

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Speaker 4: going into training. This knowledge needs to be available to

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Speaker 4: them too. If all teachers in all classrooms. We're taking

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Speaker 4: this really considered and deliberate and explicit approach to the

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Speaker 4: way they go about their teaching. Their students will learn

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Speaker 4: and we will see gaps closed, improved rates, international assessments

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Speaker 4: will look better. Everything will be better, and we.

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Speaker 3: Can do it.

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Speaker 2: Doctor Jenney Donovan, thank you so much for joining us.

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Speaker 3: It was a pleasure.

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Speaker 5: Thank you, Sam, thanks for joining us on the Daily Oz.

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Speaker 5: If you learned something from today's episode, don't forget to

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Speaker 5: hit subscribe so there's a TDA episode waiting for you

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Speaker 5: every weekday morning.

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Speaker 2: We'll be back again

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Speaker 5: Tomorrow morning, but until then, have a brilliant day.