Page 4755 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 13 December 2005
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balanced literacy approach, recommended by the recently released national report on teaching reading, in which phonics is a key element along with a range of other sound teaching practices. This will continue when the new framework is implemented. The success of this approach is seen in the results of the ACT assessment program in literacy, where ACT students perform at the highest level and remain amongst the best in the country.
I would like to focus briefly on the ACT assessment program results. Last week we released the results for the 2005 year, which showed that the standards of ACT education remain very high. ACTAP testing in ACT primary schools covers reading, writing and numeracy for years 3, 5, 7 and 9 students across nationally agreed minimum acceptable standards. Such testing provides important information for parents and carers and provides a map of student progress over the years. It also provides government with information about areas where we can celebrate success while also identifying areas where improvements can be achieved.
This program also ensures that individual students who require additional support are provided with that support. Parents are provided with an individual student report as part of the program which shows their child’s performance compared to the middle 60 per cent of their peers and the mean cohort performance. In years 3, 5 and 7 the child’s performance is also compared to the national benchmarks in reading, writing and numeracy. ACTAP examines ACT students’ literacy and numeracy performance against the curriculum profile levels and the national benchmarks.
More than 17,000 students across years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in ACT government, Catholic and most independent schools took part in this year’s testing. While the results across the board were excellent, a couple of areas must be highlighted. The year 3 reading result is particularly pleasing, with 96 per cent of students above the national benchmark. Years 3 and 5 students in the ACT are maintaining a high standard of achievement when assessed against national reading, writing and numeracy benchmarks. Year 7 benchmark results show that our students maintain a high standard in reading and writing. There has also been a small but steady improvement in year 7 numeracy benchmark results between 2003 and 2005. ACT results in year 7 numeracy are among the best in Australia, but there is room for progress in this area.
On top of all that, there are no significant differences between the performance of boys and girls in reading and numeracy in years 3, 5 and 7 against the benchmark standards. While changes in the results for indigenous students need to be treated with some caution due to the small number of indigenous students in each year level, it is pleasing to see there have been increases in the proportion above benchmark in years 3 and 5 numeracy.
In terms of the ACT’s own testing on curriculum profiles in the areas of literacy and numeracy, the education system also remains strong. Year 3 results are consistent with previous years, with high proportions of students performing in the top two profile levels in reading, writing and numeracy. Year 5 results show more than 75 per cent of students achieving in the top two profile levels in reading and numeracy, and significant proportions of year 7 students achieved in the top two profile levels in all areas, with over 80 per cent of students in reading and about 70 per cent in numeracy achieving at these high levels. Year 9 results were consistent with those in previous years, with more
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