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The government has announced that primary schools will have to test reading, writing and maths.
From next year, schools will be required to test five-year-olds’ ability to connect sounds and letters at weeks 20 and 40 of the school year.
From Grades 3 to 8, schools must test students twice a year in reading, writing, and math using either electronic assessments or Progressive Assessment Tests (PATs).
Education Secretary Erica Stanford said the tests cannot be used to create league tables.
“Our intention is not to pit schools against each other, this data is simply to give parents an idea of how their children are doing, for teachers to guide practice and for the system to understand how we are tracking.”
Stanford said most schools have begun using the tests, but practices are inconsistent and some teachers do not make good use of the test results to guide children’s next steps in learning.
“Some schools are not using assessment at all but, more importantly, assessment is used to inform teaching practice and so the Education Review Office (ERO) has been saying for more than a decade, probably 25 years actually, that we need to have a consistent tool and we need to build capacity in this area and that is what we are going to deliver.”
Stanford University said that about 60% of schools have used the electronic testing system (e-asTTle) and about 1,000 schools use PAT.
She said the tests would ensure parents had an accurate picture of their children’s progress.
“We want parents to have access to rich data in a clear and consistent way so they can understand how their child is progressing. Teachers can also use this data in the classroom to guide teaching practice, and more importantly, principals and boards can understand the progress of their schools. For us as a system, we need to understand how the whole country is doing in the aggregate,” she said.
“These are just the first steps. We are also looking at some other checks that can be done at key milestones to ensure parents are aware of their child’s progress throughout the process.”
Phonics testing for new students will support the government’s decision to make reading instruction mandatory using a structured literacy approach.
Stanford University said the Curriculum Insights and Progression Study, which provides a national assessment of literacy and numeracy levels against the New Zealand curriculum, would be expanded to include annual assessments of students’ reading, writing and maths skills in years 3, 6 and 8.
Here’s a recap of what the Prime Minister and Education Minister said at the press conference:
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