NAPLAN results, can't say I am surprised.

[Cormoran]

One in three school students not meeting numeracy and literacy expectations, NAPLAN results show https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-23/one-in-three-students-not-meeting-naplan-standards/102756262

I teach French as a LOTE teacher in private primary schools. I also teach Primary Ethics in public schools, so I spend a fair amount of time in classrooms and the Australian education system, both in private and public is so weird for me who grew up in the French System.

I was called in a meeting once because I didn't praise kids during the ethics debates. That's the whole point of ethics, there is no "good" or " bad" answer.

"Thank you for you input, anyone wants to build or comment on that " is how we are trained to answer after a child's intervention. You never say "good" "Great, well done" .

This endless need to be cajoled. Never say anything negative. This teacher got reprimanded for giving a student " studying strategies" . https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/teacher-made-to-apologise-for-giving-child-improvement-strategies-20230815-p5dwqa.html

A child presents a crappy work, you have to put a " good effort" sticker even when it is evident that no effort was put into it. Everything is always positive. Constant praise even on things that don't deserve praising.

I live in the Northern Beaches, and so many kids even in these privileged and rich suburbs don't know how to read in year 5 or even year 6. In the French system, it would have been addressed from year 1. With parents being given interventions at home, extra booklets, extra sessions with parents, teacher and child together, so that the parents can work at home and then report back to the teacher.

Here, because of the streaming system, they are just put in the lowest group, with low expectations. There is no streaming in the French system. If you struggle, you have to do a lot of extra work to catch up. Parents are key players in this. Here , parents, throw back the ball and say it is the school's job.

In Australia, there is no participation or involvement of parents into a child's learning and education. In France, notebooks go home with the child every day and there are comments written by the teacher, that the the parent has to sign.

Often, there will be instructions ( more like an order) to do some extra work on something the child struggles with.

In some of the private schools I worked in, struggling kids would be strongly encouraged to stay home on NAPLAN testing days.

Fascinating to see that children from LOTE backgrounds were the standout achievers.

Schools that adopted phonics and direct instruction methods also excelled, which will trigger the usual suspects.

Overall, an absolutely appalling result for our country. Our international PISA results have been in freefall for years, even pre-Covid.

Neither of my points about the success of LOTE students and schools adopting phonics and direct instruction have been covered in that ABC article which is typical of our national broadcaster. Nothing to see here.

Or, you know, could be that the year 3's this year had nearly two years of "online education" of wildly varying quality due to parent availability, school decision making, and parent resources for prep and year 1 in some places.

This is hardly an analysis. It’s based on your experience of teaching French (a very specific experience) in the Northern Beaches (an even more specific experience of class), I’m more worried about teachers like you in the system. Your generalisations and extrapolations are quite something! My DC’s school is average ICSEA. The teachers kill themselves going above and beyond with providing thoughtful feedback on work. The parents are very involved and most kids love their school. Therefore, the Australian system
is flawless. Oh, and Singapore tops the PISA, therefore we should all push all students into high-level maths and science at the expense of any other development or creative skills. /s

I’m in NSW and have two children in high school and two recently graduated. Since they started school I’ve felt that not enough time is devoted to the core subjects. There are simply not enough hours in the school day by the time sport, languages, various assemblies and parades and every other random thing is added in.

Why are children in primary school learning second languages when they can barely string together a sentence in English? My children had years of these compulsory lessons and they were useless. Spelling and grammar are a mess in this country. Why is scripture compulsory in public primary schools?

I hate to think how much valuable learning time is wasted over the years.

Why is scripture compulsory in public primary schools?

It’s not. It’s at the discretion of the school. Your kids’ principal is choosing to have scripture.

I don’t think that’s correct. Dept of Ed site says schools must give 40 minutes per week for religious education lesson and that parents have the option to opt out of religious ed, but no worthwhile learning can take place during that period for the children not attending.

For my children in public primary school this lesson was during regular class time but public high school was at 8am for those who wanted to opt in.

Apologies if I got it wrong. I’m not in NSW. In WA it’s no longer compulsory and most schools don’t do it anymore. Public high schools have never done it here AFAIK

The religious studies thing in NSW is a throwback condition when responsibility for schooling was separated from the church (ages ago).

I recognise what you say, @Cormoran with experience as a parent in NSW and UK primary environments. It was pretty shocking to me and I did lots of volunteering to offer extra maths support so saw stuff first hand at what was supposedly one of the top state schools. And my god the constant events, occasions, parades and sports and parties...all good until someone asks about writing and numbers haha.

Public schools in NSW have to offer scriptures, but taking part is not compulsory. You can have "non-scripture".
However, for a long time, in primary schools, a kid could not do something that would put the scripture kid as disadvantage, so no reading, no homework, especially in those schools were principals were highly in favour of religion. Some schools even had kids pick up rubbish from playground, others allowing only colouring. Imagine being a Y6 kid doing colouring and not being allowed to read a book.
This is how Primary Ethics was born, to give critical thinking on ethical matters content in classrooms as a meaningful alternative .

Teachers do an online course, two days of face to face training, and then download the lesson scripts and animate the debate. We had to pay for a police record check.
Instead for scripture, anyone attending the local church can do it, and can do whatever they want. No age-adapted curriculum, no police checks, no training. Sometimes it is the minister, or just one of his/her churchgoers. Sometimes it is someone too zealous who has then to be removed.

Some private schools offer languages, public schools do not unless they have a special program like the one at Killarney Heights.

I like to think that by teaching French grammar, I am also helping them build a sense of what grammar is and that it will help in English as well.

Fascinating to see that children from LOTE backgrounds were the standout achievers

Nope, I’m not. Had direct experience of a few public primary and high schools with my kids. These schools were all >95% LOTE as we live in a major city so that’s just the typical demographic. This high % automatically gained the school additional teaching and lote support staff resulting in lower primary class sizes of 15 kids. On top of this ALL of these kids were in external tutoring (from kindergarten) 5-6 days a week with the sole aim of getting into particular selective high schools. No, not a generalisation, it was every kid. Add onto that extracurricular music lessons, generally violin, to aid in scholarships to high performing private schools should the particular selective schools fall through. Add onto that the fact that the teachers/school were given merry hell if they didn’t give oodles of homework. I’m talking 5 readers a night plus a maths sheet right from kindergarten. Personally, I refused as it was ridiculous beyond belief and on voicing that was told exactly why the school was ‘forced’ to do this. Not only the schools I experienced but colleagues with kids at other schools had exactly the same experience. So, no, I am not surprised or fascinated at all.

What I was surprised about was the overt racism displayed by parents of other kids towards white children. Most parents told their kids not to play with them as it ‘will make you dumb because they are dumb’. Again, colleagues with kids at other schools experienced the same so not just the schools mine attended. Thankfully lots of kids don’t listen to their parents and do what they want. Then when they get into high school they see their parents for exactly what they really are. My kids (adults/young adults) still have good friends from primary to this day, and they are absolutely amazing wonderful kids despite their parents. Parents, I may add, who are deeply puzzled as to how my kids did well at school and also got into competitive uni degrees despite not only being white and dumb but also not having had any of the intensive tutoring. The answer is the uni’s are racist and ‘just let white kids in’. As I said, the kids are absolutely wonderful people, and thankfully now see their parents for exactly what they are, and in a few cases went to remote lower tier uni’s just to get away from them (as kids here usually live at home in uni unless from the country). But yeah, in the main LOTE was in no way an educational disadvantage!