When the Turnbull Government’s expert advisory panel released its landmark report into the need for literacy and numeracy checks for Australian Year 1 students in 2017, former Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham hailed it as “having the potential to significantly boost Australian student outcomes”.
While critics have cautioned over increased teacher workloads and misuse of assessment data, schools conducting the early checks have found the practice valuable for quickly identifying students who need extra support in the classroom.
Eight years since the expert advisory panel’s report, literacy and numeracy checks for Year 1 students have only gathered momentum, with NSW extending its numeracy trial to 165 schools, targeting full rollout by 2026. Meanwhile, South Australia has taken the lead, becoming the first state to guarantee both literacy and numeracy checks in Year 1.
On June 27, Education Ministers agreed to progress the implementation of the national numeracy check, which has been broadly welcomed by education bodies across Australia.
“The 10-minute check is to identify kids that might need additional help; then it’s our job as Ministers with the funding we’re providing to make sure kids get that additional help to help them to catch up and keep up and ultimately meaning more kids finish high school,” Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said.
The National Catholic Education Commission’s (NCEC) Executive Director Jacinta Collins has welcomed the move.
“This is a positive step towards early identification of students’ learning needs to target evidence-based intervention to ensure students develop the foundational numeracy skills which will stay with them throughout their schooling,” Collins said in a statement following the announcement.
“Catholic schools across Australia currently adopt a range of systems for early tracking of mathematical proficiency and many Catholic schools and school systems are currently piloting a numeracy check for Stage One.”
Collins said “a concentrated national focus” on mathematical outcomes in Catholic schools across the country has been supported by the NCEC’s Mastery in Mathematics program which provides quality curriculum resources for Years 7 and 8 mathematics teachers, with further resources being developed for Year 9 and 10 curricula.
The resources, which are freely available to other sectors, have garnered strong interest with more than 1,400 schools and 26,768 users across the Catholic, government and independent sector accessing them.
“It’s encouraging to see there is an appetite for quality, evidence-based curriculum resources by teachers,” Collins said.
“The more we can support teachers with data, evidence and quality resources, the better equipped they will be to focus on the needs of individual learners in the classroom.”