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Comment by tracey h on December 4, 2010 at 11:47pm

I understand your concern is about the age of the child. My child started school at the age of 4. It was an easy decision, I could have waited until my child turned 5, if I had I would have only been holding my child back (ready for school). My child is in grade 2 and doing fantastic.My other child in grade 3 who started at the age of 5 did the naplan test and what I noticed was lots of homework being bought home. As soon as the naplan test was completed I haven't seen any of the homework that I had seen previously, to this day it is not a part of their curriculum. Anyway my point is that the naplan test is a waste of money and time, and students are pressured.I will not judge a school with the naplan results. Every child is different, and shouldn't they be. If my children were struggling I would be aware of that, and do something about it myself. Also most classrooms have 24 students to 1 teacher, so every child would get atleast 5mins one-on-one time with the teacher.

Comment by Sonia Louise on September 5, 2010 at 8:47pm

Yes but... isn't that the point? If kids in Qld dont' do as well compared with kids in other states, and the reason is for example that they don't have as high academic goals as in other states, then that's very useful information to know. It's not "unfair" to Queensland, it's demonstrating that there is an issue there. If parents in Qld and Queensland Education then say, well, we like play based prep and we like our age of entry, thanks, they they have to wear the fact that their Naplan results are not as good. It's great data to be able to compare results before and after the national curriculum.

Comment by Loven David on February 2, 2010 at 8:44pm

I don't believe the data is useful and this ranking system is a means to remove resources and attract good teachers from teaching in public schools. If there is a need to rank, maybe we should rank parents abilities to parent their children.

At the end of the day, a parent who places a great amount of time interacting with their children's learning development will do better not only academically but socially irregardless of the type of school you send them to (i.e. assuming your child doesn't require some form of special or religious need).

Public schools is about being involved within the wider community and supporting the right and ability to access education of the highest quality no matter what your economic, cultural, religious, and disabilities may be. Removing resources and incentives to attract good teachers in the public system, then ranking them below par does not inspire confidence for some parents to send their kids in the public system further removing their involvement within the wider community. No need for statistics here, this clearly what is happening now...Let's not forget, former PM John Howard and Bob Hawke both attended public schools in a time when public schools were well resourced to attract quality teachers and was virtually free.

Comment by Fiona Van Blarcom on January 31, 2010 at 11:59am

I totally agree. Not only that, in Qld Year 7 is the last year of primary school but in Victoria, for example, it is the first year of high school. I noticed that while Qld kids in Years 3 & 5 were behind most of the other states, they are often ahead in the Year 7 statistics. You really can't make a comparison until we have uniform school starting age and curriculum. When my daughter did Year 3 NAPLAN testing in 2008, there were sections of the test containing work they hadn't even started to cover yet.