The Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia (AHISA) today launched a discussion paper calling for a public debate about the purpose of and approach to Australian schooling.
"It appears that policy makers have been slow to notice that performative, outcomes-driven models of schooling are failing our children," said AHISA's CEO Dr Chris Duncan.
"The lack of a policy vision about the moral, human and civic purpose of schooling at the national level may well be contributing to the widening gaps in the achievement of Australian children that national and international testing continues to record."
Summarising the sharp swings in education policy over the last two decades, the paper highlights the need for a 'values-based' vision of Australian schooling that renews and re-articulates the moral purpose of schooling, more akin to the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (2019): 'that all young Australians will become confident and creative individuals, successful lifelong learners, and active and informed members of the community.'
"The conflicting visions of education we have witnessed in Australian education policy over two decades have placed unwarranted demands on schools and school leaders as they juggle the polarising values and demands of policy," said Dr Duncan.
Dr Duncan suggests the narrative of Australian schooling could be shifted by transforming NAPLAN into a powerful digital learning tool by using the online test to provide immediate and 'value-salient' feedback to students.
"We know that emotions significantly impact problem-solving, critical thinking and academic confidence. Providing students with several answering opportunities in NAPLAN – known as 'second-chance learning' – enables students to rethink their response, which is the aim of feedback and the hallmark of learning.
"Second-chance learning eases the 'sting' or 'taint' of error that can now be detected by electroencephalogram (EEG) analysis and targets those cohorts of students most at risk of falling behind, a key priority of the Better Fairer Schools Agreement", said Dr Duncan.
"Reforming NAPLAN in this way would also generate formative national data, enabling better insights into teaching interventions which reduce incorrect answering attempts.
A re-purposed NAPLAN provides a fresh narrative for Australian schooling, one that is 'values-based' rather than 'outcomes-driven', where care, trust and empathy are central to student well-being and academic achievement.
