http://www.senatorbirmingham.com.au/Lat ... ty-reforms
Literacy and numeracy check for all Aussie schools under the Turnbull Government's quality reforms
The Turnbull Government has announced an expert group of principals, teachers, speech specialists, academics and researchers will progress the staged implementation of a nation-wide phonics assessment and the development of a numeracy check.
Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham said the short assessments of year 1 students' literacy and numeracy skills are backed by evidence and will provide early identification of those students who are behind so they can be targeted with interventions before the achievement gap grows.
This is very exciting news for IFERI as one of our organisation's main aims is to promote global use of a Year One phonics screening check akin to England's statutory Year One Phonics Screening Check. England's introduction to the check in 2012 provides a baseline measure for all scenarios where English is taught for reading. The check provides a professional steer regarding teaching effectiveness and also provides an indication of individual children's technical alphabetic code knowledge and decoding skill. In England we have seen year on year improvements in teaching effectiveness since the check and many schools have shown that all, or virtually all, the children can be taught the technical knowledge and skills required to read both real words and unknown pseudo-words. This raises very serious questions indeed regarding the identification of 'special needs' - how much of special needs statistics are as much about teaching methods and effectiveness rather than the individual child's learning differences and needs?
Attention now needs to turn regarding adoption of the check throughout the UK, however, as only England, to date, uses a national phonics check. IFERI committee member, Anne Glennie, has raised the alarm regarding flawed or misguided teacher-education and low aspirations for literacy in Scotland. See her short but powerful alarm here, 'The Attainment gap? What about the teaching gap?':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxqpNzASnJA
Back to Australia, congratulations and a sincere thanks to Simon Birmingham, Minister for Education and Training, who has had the foresight to recognise the importance of the adoption of a simple phonics check in Australia.
IFERI is very reassured to note the panel members selected to report back to the Education Council in mid-2017. Two members of the panel are members of IFERI's Advisory Group. Here is the full panel:
Minister Birmingham said:Ms Mandy Nayton OAM – Chief Executive Officer, Dyslexia-SPELD Foundation, Western Australian President AUSPELD
Professor Pamela Snow – Head of the La Trobe Rural Health School, registered psychologist, having qualified originally in speech pathology
Dr Jennifer Buckingham – Education Research Fellow the Centre for Independent Studies
Mr Steven Capp – Principal, Bentleigh West Primary School Victoria
Professor Geoff Prince – Director, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute
Ms Allason McNamara – Maths Teacher at Trinity Grammar, Kew, Vic, President Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers (AAMT)
It must be noted that there are many people working collaboratively to bring about these changes in Australia (and have done for years) - people behind the scenes who may never get recognition - not that they seek it - but who have provided research evidence, personal testimony, responded to calls for evidence, written open letters, responded to media features, made changes to practice in schools which demonstrate the profound difference teaching methods and content can make - and so on.“These highly regarded academic, health and education experts will drive these reforms, establish an implementation plan including an initial pilot to be scaled up to an early years’ skills check for all Australian students. They will consider the frequency, timing and core skills to be assessed prior to reporting by mid-2017.
“This panel will also consider existing examples from Australia and overseas, such as the Year 1 phonics check used in England that involves children verbally identifying letters and sounds in both real words and made up words to show a child’s understanding of how language works.
“Similar numeracy checks see children undertake tasks such as simple counting, recognising numbers, naming shapes and demonstrating basic measurement knowledge.”
Minister Birmingham said the implementation of the phonics assessment was an example of an evidence-backed reform that had previously been lost in the “washing machine debate” of schools funding over many years.
Whilst people are commonly frustrated with the political class, it also needs to be noted that there are, and always have been, politicians who have listened objectively, transparently and honestly to information provided by others and put into motion necessary reviews and legislation in the field of education. There is much that politicians get wrong, and tinker needlessly with perhaps to manifest their political and ideological views, but these are times when, thanks to the internet and the communication networks that have been made available to us, we are more able to group together and hold those in authority to account.