By now, most stakeholders in the education system will have heard about the Federal Government’s My School initiative.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority has set up a website that allows visitors to compare NAPLAN test results of almost 10,000 Australian schools.

One of the specific uses for such a tool is to help parents select a school for their child by comparing results on the literacy and numeracy tests from within a local area.

While the website is not hard to use, it is definitely worth reading some of the accompanying material, in order to get the most out of it.

In particular, it’s important to understand what the NAPLAN tests measure, how the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage is calculated and what it affects, and how to interpret the data on the website.

All of these topics are covered on the My School Resources page, as well as specific information for parents, an explanatory video, flyers in 18 community languages and a list of frequently asked questions and their answers.

Read more at http://www.myschool.edu.au/Resources.aspx

Building on the changes wrought by the introduction of a Prep year in 2007, among the themes the Bligh government is opening up for public discussion – online, at community forums, or in writing – is Getting Ready For School, in which plans include:

“… building up to 240 new kindergartens and providing funding for long day care centres to employ qualified early childhood teachers, so that every child in Queensland can participate in an extra year of learning with a qualified early education teacher before they even start Prep.”

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