NAPLAN analysis highlights progress

Parents at Cooinda Primary School have been given an introduction to the analysis tools the school is using to pinpoint the academic strengths and weaknesses of its students.

For the past six years, Cooinda Primary School has provided its NAPLAN data to analysis company Best Performance which uses the information to identify problem areas and track the individual progress of students between tests.

The school leaders say the analysis is providing significant benefits to its student’s scores.

“One of the things that the publication of NAPLAN results doesn’t indicate is the progress that children have made – it gives you the actual test score only,” Cooinda Primary School principal Anne Fletcher said.

“Some children will have made great gains between Years 3 and 5 which means that the school has actually supported their learning, even if the student is still not scoring at a very high level.

“Equally, a high achieving student could have made no progress but still achieved well, in which case the school is not doing its job.”

Cooinda Primary board chairman John Waring said the analysis had prompted timetable changes

“We’ve moved things around to make sure that the first two hours of each day are blocked out for literacy and numeracy,” he said.

“And we’ve watched the NAPLAN scores in those areas improve since that change.”

Cooinda Primary invited interested parents to take old NAPLAN tests which were then analysed by Best Performance.

Results were presented at an informal evening.

“We were trying to get rid of the stigma attached to NAPLAN testing by some parents and increase understanding of the data and how we can use it to provide a better education,” Mr Waring said.

Parents Dave and Molly Holzapfel said they were impressed with the accuracy of the analysis.

“As far as reading texts and gathering information go I was 100 per cent,” Mr Holzapfel said.

“But they could immediately tell from some of the other questions that I’m not much of a book reader, it was incredible.”

Cooinda plans to combine its analysis with schools using Best Performance to identify trends across the Bunbury network.