The Year 3 students from Tenison Woods Catholic School were nominated to participate in the NAPLAN Writing Rubric Review Pilot Study. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has been undertaking a comprehensive review of the NAPLAN writing assessment program with the aim of improving the way writing is assessed, marked and reported.
The Australian Council of Educational Research (ACER) has been engaged to re-develop aspects of the assessment and conduct a Pilot Study to support the refinement of the rubric and assessment tasks.
The NAPLAN Writing Rubric Review Pilot Study is a computer-based assessment which was delivered online at our school on Friday 11th June. For this assessment Richard Apps, a trained invigilator, attended our school to administer the assessments to our students. The NAPLAN Writing Rubric Review Pilot Study is about testing the writing rubric and writing tasks, not about testing the students or their ability. The students were really 'testing the test'.
The NAPLAN Writing Rubric Review Pilot Study is gathering evidence about newly developed writing rubrics, assessment tasks and test procedures that may be used in future NAPLAN Writing assessments. The results of the pilot will inform the writing assessment review being undertaken by ACARA.
The student were very responsible and the ACER representative, Richard Apps, was very impressed with the way the students regulated and engaged with the test.
I was incredibly proud of our students and the effort they put into the online writing test.
Sarah Byrne
Leader of Learning