Victorian parents allowing kids to ‘opt out’ of NAPLAN testing

The horror toll of NAPLAN testing on students has been uncovered as some parents take extraordinary steps to ease their child’s anxiety.

NAPLAN testing is taking a toll on students and worried parents are letting their kids to opt out of the test.

Several Victorians schools have sent notices to parents on tips to reduce test anxiety in children.

A petition to end NAPLAN in Victorian schools has also gathered hundreds of signatures. It states the test “both ­increases student stress and undermines learning”.

More than 200,000 Victorian students lost up to 21 weeks of face-to-face learning in classrooms due to lockdowns last year.

All schoolchildren in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 — unless exempted by their parents — will sit the test on Tuesday.

Melbourne mum Jules Hay, a teacher, said she found no value in NAPLAN as a parent.

Ms Hay said her daughter in year 3, Indiah, 8, would not sit the test but her son Zachary, 10, in year 4, was sitting it.

“I explained what the test is about to my kids and I let them choose whether they want to sit it,” she said. “I don’t want to be given a dot on a graph telling me how they are doing.”

Ms Hay said Indiah was worried about sitting an exam because her teachers had been teaching to the test.

Jules Hay, with her kids Indiah and Zachary. Picture: Rob Leeson.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t agree with it, but they don’t realise the kids don’t have to sit it,’’ she said.

Professor Pasi Sahlberg, of the Gonski Institute for Education, said year 3 pupils were afraid to go to school while NAPLAN was on because it was “too traumatic”.

Students needed tutoring to cope with the “high-stakes ­assessment”, he said.

Prof Sahlberg said there was a “poor clarity of aims and purposes of NAPLAN that lacks the power to support student learning”, leading to a growing sense of frustration among teachers and schools.

Boycott NAPLAN, a ­coalition of educators and ­parents, says last year’s ­prolonged remote learning in Victoria will affect the veracity of the tests.

But Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority chief executive David de Carvalho said NAPLAN provided information about how well students were learning the essential skills of reading, writing and maths.

“With the cancellation of NAPLAN last year and the ­interruption of schooling ­because of COVID the community is eager for information about the impact on learning in literacy and numeracy and the effectiveness of remote teaching and learning,” Mr de Carvalho said.