I watched this video the other day by sir Ken Robinson and it really got me thinking about the purpose of NAPLAN testing. We are collecting rich data sets on students numeracy and literacy development throughout their educational journey. What do we do with this data apart from use it to make judgments about schools ‘success’ when that data is more a representation of the level of disadvantage in the catchment area of the school and less to do with the schools educational ‘success’.

Would it be a good idea to use this data to group students into similar numeracy and literacy levels so as to be more effective in targeting the level of need in the classroom. Currenetly I see classrooms full of students the same age but sometimes so far apart in competency and comprehension levels and teachers sometimes struggling to make their lessons relevant and challenging to all in the classroom. This seems to be a contentious issue of breaking from the ‘educate by age group’ mould but something I feel relevant for the future of education in the country.