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Julia Gillard

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The Hon Julia Gillard MP

Minister for Education. Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations

Minister for Social Inclusion. Deputy Prime Minister

12 May, 2008

Transcript

Radio Interview (612 ABC), 8.30am Monday, 12 May 2008

National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy

MADONNA KING:
If your child is in year three, five, seven or nine then you might want to cook up some fish for dinner tonight, make sure they get a good night sleep and send them off tomorrow morning with a hearty breakfast. Why? Over the course of the next three days one million students in 9000 schools will be part of the first national numeracy and literacy testing. Every child in these grades will be given the same test to determine where your child’s class is in comparison to the rest of Australia. Julia Gillard the Deputy Prime Minister is the Minister for Education, good morning.
JULIA GILLARD:
Good morning Madonna.
MADONNA KING:
Welcome back to 612 ABC Brisbane.
JULIA GILLARD:
Thank you.
MADONNA KING:
What’s the reason for the national testing?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well the principle reason is to make sure we can get information to parents about how their child is going. This is the first time, as you’ve said, that we’ve had a genuinely national test. It’s the first time that we’ve had four grades participating in testing, so going up all the way to year nine. And it’s the first time that information for parents will be about achievement bands, so they won’t just know how their child is going against a benchmark; they’ll actually know whether they’re in the highest achieving band or the lowest achieving band.
MADONNA KING:
How will they get that information?
JULIA GILLARD:
It will come to them in a report card that has the band displayed and has a description of what each band means.
MADONNA KING:
In practical terms Norman Park state school or Terrace will get a report card that says that school is a high achieving school; it rates this across the country. Is that right?
JULIA GILLARD:
Parents will actually get their own child’s results and they will have it displayed in bands. So you will know where your child is on a description of their achievements.
MADONNA KING:
Will you know where your school is?
JULIA GILLARD:
School results are available to people and many schools report that to their parental community. We think that that’s very important too and obviously that information for the first time is going to be made available to the Federal government. So it’s important to us but the people right at the centre of this are the children taking the test…
MADONNA KING:
Why is it important to you? Is there a funding link here at all? Just say a school in Brisbane is really low, below average all students of the grade five, the results of the test, is there somebody who would provide extra funding or?
JULIA GILLARD:
It’s important for government and it’s important to teachers because it obviously shows which schools and which students are in need for additional assistance. So that is important for considerations about funding. We’re talking to our state and territory colleagues about funding what more we can be doing to address educational disadvantage, to help those children who are at risk of falling behind and obviously this is a tool that helps us identify where additional assistance is needed.
MADONNA KING:
As a parent trying to decide where to send their children, will parents outside that school community have assess to the information?
JULIA GILLARD:
At this stage what parents are going to get is their own report card. We’re talking to State and Territory governments about the best use of this information. Obviously it can be used by government to work out who needs additional assistance but I think the exciting thing here is for the first time ever a genuinely national test, for the first time ever bands of achievement being reports to parents. I think that that’s the kind of information that parents want.
MADONNA KING:
Some people have said it risks schools of being put into the shame file?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well what we want here is genuine information for the purpose of the assistance and encouragement. Just as you would say to a child who came up in the minimum band, ‘let’s work out what we can do to boost your reading, boost your writing, boost your numeracy, let’s work through this’. I think we should take that approach to schools and whole communities as well.
MADONNA KING:
It a school does particularly well would you consider researching why and trying to emulate best practice across the nation’s schools?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well certainly the information can feed into research like that. If you have comparable schools and one is getting a very much improved result over another then you might want to go in and see what’s actually happening in those classrooms that’s different to this clearly working and by looking at that kind of best practice. Then obviously everyone can learn from the example, most particularly teachers; so that they can be sharing what’s really working in the best of our classrooms.
MADONNA KING:
You mention teachers. Could principals use that to award pay rise or to indeed get rid of non- performing teachers?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well that’s not the purpose of this and obviously the way in which teachers are rewarded is the subject of agreements. So there’s no part of this testing that is about an agenda like that. It’s about information to parents, information to schools and then information to government. And it’s not about punishment and reward from anyone’s point of view, it’s not about punishment and reward of children involved or the schools involved it’s about working out how we can do better. We’re a nation that I believe wants to see every child get the best possible start in life. The government is dedicated to bringing an Education Revolution and making sure every student gets a world class education. That means we need information about what’s working, what’s not, where problems, are who needs additional assistance.
MADONNA KING:
Have you had a look at any of these questions?
JULIA GILLARD:
Are you going to give me a pop quiz?
MADONNA KING:
Yes I am if that’s ok? Can I ask you a couple?
JULIA GILLARD:
I have to say I haven’t been studying my questions. No I haven’t done any cheat sheets.
MADONNA KING:
Well what about if I just ask you this. What’s the square root of 250?
JULIA GILLARD:
Square root of 250, heavens above. I know that you need to divide it to get two numbers and when you multiplied it gives you 250 – that’s right?
MADONNA KING:
Yes. Something times something equals 250.
JULIA GILLARD:
Yes can’t do that in my head Madonna.
MADONNA KING:
We were going through it this morning; don’t feel bad we were saying oh oh oh it’s amazing what our kids are learning in school today. Was maths a strong point of yours?
JULIA GILLARD:
No it wasn’t and it’s harder now.
MADONNA KING:
Absolutely, absolutely. How did you go at school?
JULIA GILLARD:
I did pretty well at school. I would obviously need a piece of paper to work my way through 250, I am scrabbling around on the desk to find ways while talking to you; I wasn’t prepared with pen and paper for doing an interview I thought that would be about talking. I did well at school, obviously there were some subjects that I liked better than others but yes I enjoyed school, I enjoyed my school experience. I certainly loved English and English literature, grammar, reading and writing and all of those things. And all these years later I am still a ferocious reader when I get the opportunity.
MADONNA KING:
When you get the opportunity. Well I appreciate your time this morning.
JULIA GILLARD:
I am scribbling with one hand Madonna and I reckon is somewhere near 15.
MADONNA KING:
Yes.
JULIA GILLARD:
I would need to do a bit more.
MADONNA KING:
No the correct answer was between 15 and 20 and you were allowed to use a calculator on that one.
JULIA GILLARD:
Oh well that’s not fair I only had pen and paper.
MADONNA KING:
I appreciate you talking to us this morning. Thank you.
JULIA GILLARD:
Thanks Madonna. Bye, bye.
END

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