NAPLAN Practice

Context:

When planning lessons, I consider the school's SIP goals. The goals focusing on 'to increase student achievement in writing' and 'increasing the number of students achieving in the high bands of NAPLAN.' Through pre-assessments with students in their writing, I observed a general factor and highlighted a key part of their writing that needs practice for improvement. A major one that was noted was their grammar and punctuation skills as well as sentence structures. Therefore, I put together lessons that focus on different aspects and editing pieces of writing that is grammatically incorrect. After giving this a go independently, students then came together in small groups and discussed their findings. This has been an effective learning task as students are aware of what factors to look for when the self edit their own writing pieces. From this, I looked at previous NAPLAN tests and put together a practice presentation where students worked through activities.

Annotation/Action:

Looking at previous Year 5 NAPLAN tests, I gathered data and commonly incorrectly answered questions in the past. I put together activities for students to do to prepare them for the 2021 NAPLAN tests in Maths, Reading, Writing and Spelling. Students were to answer questions independently, do a 'think, pair, share', discuss what a misconception could be in the question with their shoulder buddy and then report back through a class discussion.

Results:

Students showed development within their understanding of what a misconception is and how some questions may include a path way that is commonly taken to an incorrect answer. It promoted critical and creative thinking skills which allowed students to recognise what steps to take to ensure they are answering the questions accordingly. As we have not received the NAPLAN results yet, I am unsure on how effective this strategy was. However, students feedback included that they felt prepare and more confident heading into each test knowing that content and practice was available to them for three weeks prior to the testing.

Evaluation:

NAPLAN testing was an aspect that most students were feeling anxious and nervous for. As their teacher, it was relieving that I was able to help in them in some way to calm down their feelings. Receiving feedback from students and knowing that they felt more comfortable due to three weeks of practice, made me satisfied with the time that we spent for practice. For some students, testing is a big deal so therefore I believe it was beneficial for students to undertake practice and feel prepared.

Standards:

2.1 Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area

2.2 Content selection and organisation

2.3 Curriculum, assessment and reporting

2.5 Literacy and numeracy strategies

3.1 Establish challenging learning goals

3.3 Use teaching strategies

3.4 Select and use resources

4.2 Manage classroom activities

Numeracy Slideshow