NSW public schools given new targets to counter declining marks
Public schools across NSW have been put on notice to drastically boost students’ academic performance and attendance rates, with the Minns government today unveiling 16 ambitious new targets to arrest rapidly declining marks.
Education
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Public schools across NSW have been put on notice to drastically boost students’ academic performance and attendance rates, with the Minns government today unveiling 16 ambitious new targets to arrest rapidly declining marks.
Last year, the latest worrying results revealed thousands of pupils were not meeting standard goals in their NAPLAN tests and that the difference in marks between the most advantaged children and disadvantaged children was ballooning.
However, in the new suite of targets to be announced by Education Minister Prue Car, the government aims to raise the results of all children, instead of retaining the previous government’s targets, which asked schools to lift a specific number of students into the top two NAPLAN achievement bands.
Critical to this goal will be a practice called explicit instruction, in which teachers clearly tell students what they need to know and how to do it – rather than hoping the student finds out information on their own.
Ms Car said the previous targets indicated a “flawed approach to standards that focused on high achievers” and failed to capture the academic improvements of all students.
“That top-down approach to education standards was failing too many students,” she said.
“We refuse to allow educational outcomes to continue their backward slide.”
Among the 16 new goals, teachers will be tasked with raising the average year five NAPLAN literacy and numeracy scores by more than ten points by 2027.
Year nine results will need to increase by almost six points to reach the target.
Schools will also be required to raise student attendance rates by one per cent in that time period and increase the number of students completing year 12 from 70.5 per cent in 2022 to 74 per cent in 2027.
The government also hopes to increase the number of students taking up university studies or other forms of work and training after finishing school from 88.1 to 92 per cent.
Performance targets set by the previous government, which required schools to lift a specific number of students into the top two achievement bands for NAPLAN tests, were scrapped in July last year.
Most schools largely failed to meet those targets.
Last year’s NAPLAN results revealed that more students were failing to meet Australia’s reading standards, with an increasing number of students falling in the very last academic band, labelled as needing additional support.
Department of Education secretary Murat Dizdar said the new targets would focus on the improvement growth of all students regardless of academic performance.
“All public schools aim to ensure all students show growth in their literacy and numeracy skills,” he said.
“We recognise that this is the cornerstone for a successful schooling experience for every student.
“Our new measures will account for the achievements of all students, not just those in the highest bands.”
The Minns government’s plan to help schools meet these new targets lies upon the success of its new curriculum, which was implemented for English and mathematics last year.
Department bureaucrats believe that a new focus on explicit teaching in the curriculum will see a shift in student results.
Explicit instruction requires teachers to clearly tell students what they need to know and do and how they need to do it, rather than requiring the student to find out information on their own.
Blakehurst High School Principal Alex Skelton said she was confident the focus on explicit instruction in classrooms would see the schools reach the new targets.
“Every lesson is clear, the teacher knows where they’re going, students know where they’re going and they know when they get there,” she said.
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