In an effective NAPLAN Numeracy test, we should expect 100% of any Core Stage 1 questions to be answered correctly by 80% or more Year 3 students. This result would show that the majority of Year 3 students demonstrated an understanding of Core Stage 1 content. In this NAPLAN test only 4 out of 15 Core Stage 1 questions were answered correctly by 80% or more Year 3 students. Does this shock you?
That means that our Year 3 students do not demonstrate a solid understanding of basic Stage 1 mathematics content. Call it basic, core whatever, these questions are the ones that should be easy to handle, easy to demonstrate for 4 out of 5 students. That still allows for a small group of 20% or 1 in 5 students to not demonstrate an understanding. We think this is a very reasonable assumption.
Question 14 is a good example.
Students had to select two digits that could be rearranged to make the largest number – 75. Only 62% of Year 3 students did this correctly. As this was a free response question, perhaps the others wrote the largest number that could be made from all 3 digits – 754. If so, this would indicate a strong understanding of place value, just a poor interpretation of the actual instructions. As a general comment, 40% of all 10 free response questions in this year’s paper scored ≤ 50%.
This question was repeated in the Year 5 paper. Still only 76% of Year 5 students answered correctly. And in all 11 Year 3 questions that were repeated in Year 5, only one scored ≥ 80%.
Question 31 was about Area.
Students had to analyse 4 shapes and find two shapes with an identical area. This requires adding square units and understanding that two half units add to make one square unit. The number of square units in each shape was 9 or less. Yes this task requires students to persevere but the task itself was simple. Only 30% of Year 3 students could work out the correct answer. This makes me want to tear my hair out. We need our students to be able to tackle more that just a one step problem. We need them to persevere on a task and not give up too easily. We need them to think logically, eliminate ones that don’t work. What are we doing to help them succeed at problem solving in general?
Question 31 was about time – how to read a calendar.
It was straight forward and did not involve having to imagine the month before or the month after. Why on earth could only 34% of our Year 3 students work this out correctly?
The low results indicate Year 3 students are inexperienced at reading a calendar. The text tells them they are looking for the 3rd Saturday. This should be obvious. It is a pity we can’t access deeper data to show the most common errors. Did most students select 3 October? Or 18 October?
If I were you, I would interview a selection of my Year 3 students to identify what it was that they misunderstood. And you can practice these ideas with your students using our Time Activities – Calendar 1-step S1 Mental Warmups
Year 3 NSW State Results 2018 NAPLAN Numeracy:
67% were Stage 1 questions (24 out of 36 questions)
42% were Core Stage 1 questions (15 out of 36 questions)
73% of these Core Stage 1 questions scored ≤ 80% correct (11 out of 15 questions)
13% of these Core Stage 1 questions scored ≤ 50% correct (2 out of 15 questions)
See the complete analysis in Whole School Planning – Mathematics Improvement Plans – Terms 3/4