Holiday classes to cram for NAPLAN

Sydney libraries and a swimming centre are running school-holiday classes to help children cram for NAPLAN tests.

Children as young as eight have been encouraged to cram for their NAPLAN tests during the holidays.

Sydney libraries and a swimming centre are running school holiday classes to help children as young as eight cram for NAPLAN tests, a move that has drawn widespread condemnation for mis­representing the aims of the testing regimen.

Amid mounting pressure for a review into the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy, Cumberland Council in the city’s west is promoting its annual ­“NAPLAN Slam” sessions for students in Year 3 to Year 9 to help them prepare for the literacy and numeracy tests next month.

The Angelo Anestis Aquatic Centre in Bexley offers similar school-holiday sessions running 3½ hours, with the promise of “free swimming time at the end”.

While the Cumberland Council defended the classes that will run at libraries in Wentworthville, Merrylands, Auburn and Regents Park, saying it was responding to demand, federal ­Education Minister Simon Birm­ingham ­described them as “unnecessary” and NSW Teachers Federation president Maurie Mulheron called them “absurd”.

“The focus of teaching, whe­ther in schools or school-holiday programs, should be to build the literacy and numeracy skills needed to succeed in life rather than to obsess over NAPLAN,” Senator Birmingham said.

“NAPLAN is, and has always been, just one part of a variety of tools teachers and families can use to assess student outcomes and highlight the areas where they might need extra support.”

Mr Mulheron said encouraging students to prepare for ­NAPLAN was “as pointless as preparing for a blood test”.

Recently his organisation commissioned a report by US education academic Les Perelman that found the test’s writing component “severely defective”.

“(NAPLAN) is meant to show a snapshot of where a student group is at. Are urban kids testing as well as non-urban kids? Low-SES kids doing as well as wealthy kids? That sort of big-picture stuff. Reducing it to a school level, or an individual level, is meaningless,” said Mr Mulheron.

“Kids should be enjoying a break from school. It would be far better for parents to take the kids out to see a show, go to the ­cinema, the museum or the zoo.”

Pressure is growing for an overhaul of NAPLAN, with Victoria recently joining NSW, Queensland and South Australia in calling for a review. Last week a meeting of state and territory education ministers agreed to draw up terms of reference for a review, noting the current testing had been in place for a decade.

NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes yesterday declined to comment on the holiday programs but previously has said there was merit in reviewing ­the test. “NAPLAN has become more complex than it was designed to be. What was designed as a simple check-up has become a major ­operation,” he said.

Acting Cumberland Council general manager Hamish McNulty said libraries regularly ran homework-help sessions to support families, particularly those from non-English-speaking backgrounds, and the school-holiday sessions were free and aimed to “demystify ­NAPLAN”.

“These sessions are popular and are part of our commitment to promoting equitable access to information across our community,” he said.

The Angelo Anestis Aquatic Centre could not be contacted.