I’m sure you heard that Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham wants to introduce mandatory phonics, literacy and numeracy standard tests for children in Year One. Tests. For six year olds.
If you’re like me, you probably thought, “enough already – let our kids be kids.”
As a teacher myself and a parent of four, I know the pressure testing puts on kids, their teachers and their families. You can’t help but feel the tension when it’s a NAPLAN year (currently years 3, 5, 7 and 9) and the parents I’ve spoken to can’t believe we would want to put that pressure on six year olds.
The thing is – kids know. You tell them time and again that the tests only capture a ‘moment in time’ – they don’t tell us about the kind of person that child is or the progress they might have made to get the results they have….but they know these tests are a BIG DEAL.
They talk about it among themselves beforehand, they compare their results afterwards. They make judgements about themselves based on how their results measure up against those of their friends.
Is that what we want for six year olds?
What I want for my own children, and what I wanted for the children I taught, is for kids to develop a deep love of learning, a love of inquiry and of curiously investigating their world and their place in it. I don’t want them stressing about a test.
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Anyone with a child in Year One would know that teachers are constantly assessing and observing our children. Your child’s teacher will know that for one student 100% on a spelling quiz means assigning more challenging words next time, or that a result of 50% for another child is a sign of huge progress that should be celebrated. They differentiate their lessons to play to the strengths of each child and they do this without the pressure of another standardised test.
There is plenty of time for comparisons later on, and there’s no question that making sure both parent and teacher know where our kids are at is important. But that needs to be backed up with the resources to help those children who are identified as needing that little bit extra attention and we haven’t seen any proposal for that in conjunction with this announcement.
We all want the best possible education for our kids but it seems strange to me, and many parents, that Minister Birmingham’s answer is to impose a new test on six year olds, but at the same time take billions of dollars out of the Federal education budget – money that would have otherwise actually helped those kids whose test indicates they’re not doing so well.
And let’s not forget we’re still waiting to see if the government will actually go ahead with more funding for childcare (as promised over three years ago) or whether they’ll continue to fund Universal Access, ensuring every child can go to preschool or kindy.
If the Minister wants to make evidence-based decisions, he should begin with the mountain of research showing kids do well at school when they’ve had access to quality early learning in the years before they start.
It’s time we trust our teachers, make sure they have the resources they need to help every child succeed from day one.
But most importantly, it’s time we let our kids be kids.
Nicole Lessio is the Principal Campaign Manager at The Parenthood. Nicole is a mum of four - Megan, Alex, Kate & Luke - from grade 12 to kindy and is a former high school teacher.
The Parenthood is Australia’s leading campaign and advocacy organisation for Aussie parents. For those keen to have their say on "letting kids be kids" visit the website.
Top Comments
I was horrified when I heard of this idea. Can we please stop measuring kids, and start teaching them instead?
On these rankings against other countries, I also feel we need to stop comparing ourselves to countries who are literally working their young into the ground, with all sorts of horrendous social problems resulting. Has anyone heard of Hikikomori? These are Japanese youth that are so overwhelmed with the demands being placed on them that they become hermits, many not even leaving the safety of their bedroom. In some other countries that are 'beating' us the kids attend school from dawn till dusk, and then leave for tutoring classes that go until midnight, and then they snatch a few hours sleep before they go off and do it again, 6 days a week (with a half day on Sunday thrown in). Is this any way to live?
To raise our standards (while still actually 'living' good lives) start by no longer expecting schools to cure all of societies ills by crowding the curriculum with non-academics that should be the role of the parents to teach anyway, have parents step up and stop expecting everyone else to raise their kids for them, and bring back a few academic basics, while bringing in innovative ideas that will allow our kids to keep up with the more free-moving world we live in. Get rid of all the pupil free days, release days, etc, that have our kids constantly being taught by substitute teachers, and put the teachers back in the classrooms every day to actually teach (while getting rid of any unnecessary paperwork, and other programs that are apparently the reason why teachers seem rarely to be in the classroom anymore)! When we were kids we had a class teacher in the classroom with us everyday. We rarely had substitutes (it happened occasionally when a teacher was sick), and pupil free days/ release days were unheard of. At school we learnt to read and write, rather than being taught many other things that apparently make the adults feel good that they are telling us in a recordable, quantifiable way. Our parents taught us values, and school was about learning academics. I am not a child of the 1940s - I was in school throughout the 80s and early 90s! What has changed so much in the last 20 years? Some changes are definitely positive, but a lot are negative. Just actually teach the kids the things they need to learn that they can get from a teacher better than a parent (like how to do a maths problem) and we will be off to a good start!
I'm off my soapbox for the day.
But aussie kids are higher on the creative scale, which is what we need if we are going to fix this planet. This is because aussie kids spend their childhood playing, not studying. Other countries, particularly Asian, beat us in terms of academic ability but ingenuity and thinking outside the box are the skills our kids have and they are worth nurturing.
I totally agree! We are focusing too much on studying to pass tests, when education should be about studying to grow the mind and natural curiosity of the child. Having lived overseas for years, it does frustrate me how hard it can be at work to get some colleagues to think outside of the box or challenge accepted doctrine, and I totally blame the education system here.