Monday, 6 March 2017

Government weakens its random inspection of 'at risk' schools by HALF @NewsAtNESA

NESA (The NSW Education Standards Authority) is fulfilling it's promise to conduct at-risk, random inspections. Last year, they promised inspection of 26 schools (18 government, 4 independent and 4 systemic) This year they have announced that they will only target 13 schools, looking at two main areas:
  • Child protection, anti-bullying and complaints/grievances
  • Quality of teaching and student learning
I commend NESA on the selection of these annual priorities and the move into greater scruitiny over teaching and learning. It is important that for Australia to educate well for the next generation that the students are well taught and progess significantly in their learning. It is not good enough for schools to simply have students in class, we must teach them too!

NESA will randomly select 13 schools instead of 26 in 2017

Saturday, 4 March 2017

Assignment Fatigue - the next big problem for HSC students

It seems like a great idea, reduce student stress by reducing 'high stress, timed exams' and introducing a mandatory assignment for all students in many courses. There will be 'depth study' focus tasks in all Science courses, assignments in the Maths courses and multi-modal presentations in the English Courses. I can't even guess what the requirements will be for other courses as they are published.

So the question comes, when would a school choose to run an assignment for students? Surely not Term 3 (the last term of the HSC year) as this is when schools typically run Trial HSC exams. Most likely not Term 4 (the first term of the HSC year) as students have likely not covered enough content, which leaves students facing a number of assignments in Term 2 and Term 3 of their HSC year. How will students cope with this when they already struggle to manage the balance between work, rest and play? (Yes, the Mars slogan!) More important, how will school's work to resolve this by managing student workload and spreading out tasks? Leave your thoughts in the comments.


Assessment and Reporting Requirements can be found here: http://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/about/news/news-stories/news-stories-detail/stage-6-syllabuses-course-guides-assessment-and-reporting-requirements