NAPLAN — WRITING
RESULTS
1065. Hon CHARLES SMITH to the Minister for Education and
Training:
I refer to the recent NAPLAN results
indicating that students are not getting the basic skills right in the early
years.
(1) Will the
minister now concede the curriculum is overcrowded in preprimary to year 2 and
consider removing the compulsory assessments placed on teachers for science,
humanities and social sciences, digital technology, the arts, health and
physical education, thus allowing teachers to teach at a point of need and
focus on literacy and numeracy in the early years?
(2) If not, why not?
Hon SUE
ELLERY replied:
I thank the honourable member for
some notice of the question.
(1) No. I invite
the honourable member to look at our NAPLAN results and he will see in fact
that Western Australian students continue to do better every year.
(2) The
Australian curriculum is an excellent foundation for student learning. Parents
want children to have the opportunity to learn about other areas such as
geography and arts. Parents also want to know that their children are achieving
in these areas.
The government is committed to
focusing on literacy and numeracy, as evidenced in our A Bright Future targets,
for which we are clearly focused on improving the health, wellbeing and education
of our children. We want more Western Australian children to have the basic
reading and numeracy skills needed for lifelong learning, training and
employment, but we also want children to develop necessary skills and
capabilities to be prepared to study STEM subjects and develop the broad
general knowledge they need to be successful in employment and life.