Teachers give evidence opposing A-E reporting

by Kerri Carr

On October 30 and 31 teachers gave evidence in the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) hearing when the Department of Education and Training sought orders to have Federation lift its ban on the NSW Government-mandated A-E student reporting system.

Sarah Redfern Public School principal and Public Schools Principals Forum chairperson Cheryl McBride said she did not believe the A-E model had a sound educational foundation.

"As we know children, people, learn effectively from being successful and being encouraged and being motivated towards achievement. Many children, if we place them into that position of regularly attracting a D or an E on their report card are going to suffer some damage to their self-esteem..."

"I also have it from another stance and that is the aggregation of the A-E. As everyone is aware we are being asked to place a child in one of those bands, say in an area like English, so we have English broken into four areas, reading, writing, speaking, listening. All of us have come across the child who is, or has a learning difficulty in reading, but maybe a really articulate speaker and a great listener and yet how do we award a grading to that child? Do we say he or she is a C because that's the middle, or do we, in fact, let the parent know through better communication that they're an outstanding child in speaking and listening."

Ms O'Brien said her school's current student reports report on each sub strand within the key learning areas.

She also said parents were "not standing up publicly and saying that we need A-E".

Murwillumbah Public School teacher and primary school representative on the Board of Studies Chris Goudkamp said A-E "labels children in a way that children shouldn't be labelled".

"I think there is still a perception out there in the community and amongst many people that an A-E is sort of an intimation, has the idea of a pass or fail, particularly if a child gets a D or an E."

He also told the IRC he did not believe the words 'outstanding to limited' were appropriate.

Mr Goudkamp said he attended a professional development course in relation to the proposed model but "I think there was a fairly big discrepancy of what people thought about what a C should look like or what a D should look like for a particular grade or a particular year level".

Whalan Public School principal Shirley Steele said the reporting model proposed by the Department of Education and Training would "absolutely not" satisfy her school's needs.

"It's simplistic and it damages children," she said.

"It doesn't provide any more information for families than they have now; actually I think it provides less."

She said A-E, or 'outstanding to limited' with A-E, was not effective reporting about student learning.

"The most effective information to parents needs to be written in terms that parents will understand...I certainly don't think it's effective reporting to students," she said.

"A one word descriptor or a grade cannot describe learning...I actually think if we're going to make judgments about children's learning we need to be able to give clear and logical explanations," Ms Steele said.

"Years ago we used to have report cards that had good or poor, and we argued as educators that was not efficient and effective and appropriate and professional. So go back to one word descriptors -- I don't actually think it [links assessment to learning]."

Bankstown Girls High School head teacher and former Federation President Dennis Fitzgerald said the use of the model A-E or the words 'outstanding to limited' would "not be useful and in many ways for many girls, many students, counterproductive for them in the short term and in the longer term".

Mr Fitzgerald told the IRC reporting on his students using the A-E model would not "most appropriately describe what we seek to teach, nor what the children have learned".

"To reduce a child's effort to one single letter after all they have put in, some students will battle and battle and battle and just at that point we say, 'Try harder, try harder, you can do it' and then I sign a report saying you are an E, then that breaks everything about the bond and everything about these values."

Riverside Girls High principal Judy King told the IRC that for most of the learning process to occur, students need considered feedback.

"They need feedback to indicate what they need to do to move to the next level of achievement and if you put one box on there with one letter or one grade in it, then that's what the students will take notice of."

Ms King said with a detailed profile report, Riverside teachers "have the opportunity to give them more positive feedback on the things that they can do well that don't lend themselves to aggregation".

Ms King also summarised for the IRC her view set out in an article in Professional Educator (October 2006): "I was setting out the view that...teachers were very, very concerned about the politicisation of assessment and reporting by both the Federal and the State Governments and that it was denying school communities the choice of determining what they felt was best suited to the teaching and learning needs of their particular communities.

"We were recognising that it's very difficult to have a one size fits all straight jacket in terms of assessment and reporting because the public system has many different kinds of schools and many different diverse school populations, from selective schools to SSPs and primary," she said.

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Last Modified: 10 Nov 2006