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
It is important that we all remember that the Myschool website is not designed as a school selection site. It was not set up as such a tool – it cannot be used to “to help parents select a school for their child” UNLESS it is just one of many many things that concern parents about their choice of school. The media have done a fine job in defocusing the actual intent of the website which is to provide comparative literacy and numeracy data from NAPLAN tests whose main purpose for teachers is diagnostic.
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