Activities in schools for NAP
14 August 2017 The National Assessment Program (NAP), which includes NAPLAN, is run at the direction of the Education Council and is an important measure through which governments, education authorities and schools can determine if young Australians are meeting important education outcomes.
There are currently two NAP activities underway in schools:
1. Item trialling for NAPLAN tests
- Trials of potential NAPLAN test items (or questions) are undertaken every year and are an essential part of the NAPLAN test development process.
- This item trialling has occurred in August each year since 2007.
- Item trialling ensures the quality of potential test questions and that the tests are valid, reliable and fair to all students.
- The security of test content is paramount. For this reason, those involved in item trialling are requested to maintain confidentiality of the content of items being trialled so no student has an unfair advantage when taking NAPLAN the following May.
- Confidentiality applies to the item content only.
- The ACARA item trialling is being held in a sample of schools (approximately 440) across Australia between 31 July and 18 August 2017.
The item trialling is independent of the school readiness testing (SRT), which is also taking place during August.
2. School readiness testing for NAPLAN Online
School readiness testing (SRT) is being held in schools across Australia in August and September.
The purpose of SRT is to ensure a school is ready to undertake NAPLAN Online in future years.
SRT aims to test the technical readiness of schools and allows schools to:
- assess their ICT capacity (bandwidth, wireless connectivity, number of devices)
- become familiar with the NAPLAN Online administration processes and procedures.
SRT is not about assessing students and it is not a NAPLAN test.
Teachers participating in SRT have no obligation to maintain confidentiality, nor is there any expectation for them to do so. SRT includes a survey component to gather school, teacher and student views on their experience of SRT, and this feedback is welcome.
2017 NAPLAN summary information released
02 August 2017 Today ACARA has released the preliminary summary results of the 2017 National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests.
The NAPLAN data show that over the last 10 years, since NAPLAN was introduced in 2008, there has been some improvement across all year levels in most domains.