In Victoria, children in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 undertake the National Assessment Program - Literacy And Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests. KK is in Year 3 this year and underwent his first NAPLAN test last week.
Unlike his Primary 3 peers in Singapore, who are probably experienced exam warriors by now, KK is still an 'exam virgin'. And so are we as parents. We have never experienced the stress or anxiety of preparing our son for testing, except for that one time during his Tae Kwon Do yellow belt grading. Even though NAPLAN is the only national test conducted once a year across the state over 3 days, the entire event has little impact on daily lives.
We know that since the beginning of the year, the teacher started giving the children more homework. But it was only from the 2nd term on that they really started to prepare them for NAPLAN. All this while, the only advice given to parents was a memo on our role in our children's education in ensuring they do their home learning (home work). I thought that would have been a basic assumption but apparently here, the parents need reminding. Anyway, there was really not much that we could do to prepare for NAPLAN as there are no textbooks to revise or study. It is explicitly mentioned that "The use of services by coaching provders is not recommended".
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining because I prefer it this way. I'm glad there is no pressure on us parents to ensure our children do well in the tests. The common understanding here is that the NAPLAN is to test how well the school has taught the children and whether they are meeting important educational outcomes in literacy and numeracy. There is no pass or fail and no ranking, the results simply shows the school's average score and your child's final result is reflected in terms of bands (1 - 6). In other words, there are no adverse consequences other than you and the school knowing where your child stands in terms of his literacy and numeracy ability.
Despite this, we are not taking the NAPLAN lightly. On our own, we bought two NAPLAN assessment books for KK to practise and we made him work diligently on completing the mini and sample tests the weeks before his NAPLAN. These little exercises gave us an idea of his strengths and weaknesses and enabled us to coach him on areas that he's not good at. His biggest problems were carelessness, bad handwriting and not planning his points for essay writing.
Our behaviour might sound kiasu by Australian standards but more important than getting good results, we really want to take this chance to instil in KK the mindset of giving his best performance in every test and the importance of pursuing excellence in everything he do. He is still young and may not understand the value of a good acadamic foundation but I believe he can sense the emphasis his parents place on education and how serious we are that he adopts a good attitude to learning. We also believed it's time for him to start to learn how to take a little pressure as all these while his school life has been pretty much carefree. Initially he was resentful he had to do extra homework and learn Chinese on Saturdays when other kids doesn't. But now, he's starting to accept homework and Chinese classes as part of his lifestyle and be responsible for completing his work before they are due.
The nights before his tests, we ensured that we do not upset KK over school work and give him undue stress. He still went for his Tae Kwon Do lesson on Tuesday evening and had his standard dose of relaxation activities. We made sure he slept early and had enough time to take sufficient breakfast before school. Perhaps as parents, that's the best support we can give them as once inside the testing room, it's all up to them.
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