ACARA | NAPLAN Writing Test

Question

Senator KOVACIC: That sort of takes me to my next question, which has a bit of a contradiction if the information is correct, which I understand it to be. Mr Gniel, you were quoted as saying that the key skills covered by NAPLAN were determined by the ministers, and you've spoken about that in your evidence already. But, on 28 May, the minister, when asked, said: On all of those things, I take advice from the experts. So, in the case of writing, I take advice from ACARA who help to set the NAPLAN tests. Mr Gniel: Yes. Senator KOVACIC: So I get that understanding, the minister does make that decision, but he does so based on your advice-is that correct? Mr Gniel: Yes, we would expect that the ministers, because it's the collective minsters- Senator KOVACIC: Yes, correct. Mr Gniel: would come to ACARA for that advice if there were to be any change to the policy position on that. At the moment, ACARA is responsible for the national assessment program as determined by that collective of ministers. Any consideration of removal of any domain, writing being the one in question, would have to be really seriously understood around the ramifications of that and what I think parents might see in that as well around the value of writing. Interestingly-I'm not sure if you saw it-Alan Finkel wrote an article in the days after the release of that statement by the government schools principal association saying that he would be very sorry to see any change to the writing in its level of importance, particularly in the age of AI, where the translation of thoughts into writing is actually going to be an increasingly important skill. Senator KOVACIC: I agree with that. Can I confirm whether ACARA has prepared or is preparing any advice on reviewing those writing tests. Mr Gniel: We continually provide advice on improvements to those tests. As an example, the writing started all being pen and paper. We've moved that online, of course, for years 5, 7 and 9. We'll continue to look at whether there are improvements that we can be making to any of the domains. We've moved to adaptive testing as well, which means that there are thousands of questions in those assessments rather than just a linear pattern of one after the other. It's a continuous process for us to provide advice on any improvements that we see, but the policy position about what domains would be assessed-as I say, we may provide advice, but that would ultimately be a decision of collective ministers. Senator KOVACIC: You're not looking to prepare anything to suggest that the writing test shouldn't continue-more so how it should be modified or enhanced. Mr Gniel: That's right. That's the public position taken by the Australian government school principals' association. We haven't been asked to provide any advice to ministers based on that, in terms of removal of writing or anything like that. Senator KOVACIC: I note that that the Australian government primary school principals' association expressed serious concerns about the fairness, consistency and validity of the year 5 writing assessments. Have they raised them directly with you as well? Mr Gniel: I've actually had some conversations around those concerns with the head of that organisation, with principals and with the principals' groups across the country as well, and I've- Senator KOVACIC: Have they been specific about what those concerns are as well? Sorry to interrupt, but just continue with that in mind. Mr Gniel: I've certainly read the concerns raised by the Australian Government Primary Principals Association, because they were put in writing, of course. We have also heard from principals' groups directly that there are concerns about how we might publish the results. That was my point before about how we've heard that concern. We share that concern. We'll be upfront about that in terms of there having been a disruption and that may have impacted those results. That will flow through from student individual results to the national results. Senator KOVACIC: Thinking to their concerns around that fairness, consistency and validity, are you doing any work as the statutory authority for an evidence based review of that to see whether those concerns-I'm sure they are legitimate-are broader across the system or whether they are perhaps specific to particular communities or particular schools? Mr Gniel: The short answer is yes. That was what I was speaking about before. We analyse that data every year, but, in this case, we're doing further analysis of the writing data in particular to assure us of its validity, as you say. The comparability part is the other part that we're looking at, including how that may impact on trend data, as you mentioned before. So, yes, the short answer is we are doing more work on that at the moment. Senator KOVACIC: One of NAPLAN's core strengths is tracking that student progress over time and across different cohorts. If a circumstance were to arise where the writing test were to be abolished, how many years of comparable national writing data would be lost, and what would be the impact of that to teachers, schools and governments who wouldn't have a way to monitor writing standards without that national benchmark? Mr Gniel: I'm happy to take some of the detail on that on notice about the starting years and those parts to it, because it will go back to 2009, I think. We also had the one year during COVID as well, and then we changed the scale in 2023. So there is a significant body of information about the writing results. I know AERO have used that to do some of their really important research as well. Without that, we wouldn't have the clear indication about the national performance in regard to writing.

Answer

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Documents

• Question with answer (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• SQ26-000682.pdf (opens in a new tab)