HUNTER students have described their NAPLAN reading test as a fair assessment of their skills, saying the paper was a mix of easy and challenging questions.
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Callaghan College Wallsend campus year nine students Jordan Close, Caitlin Skelton and Hayley Magill, all 14, were among 270 students in their grade who sat the reading paper online on Tuesday.
Schools sitting the four tests - in reading, language conventions, writing and numeracy - online have nine days to complete the tests, while schools sitting the four tests on paper have three days.
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"I thought it was good," Jordan said of the paper.
"It was challenging enough to make me focus on it. It was pretty hard, but it was fair."
Caitlin said it was "easier than what I thought it was going to be", while Hayley said it was "easy and challenging at the same time" and built up to difficult questions.
The online tests are tailored and adapt to ability.
The trio said they liked doing a practice paper for each of the four tests in class to familiarise themselves with the papers' structures, but didn't do too much content revision.
"It's not a judgement and the score isn't going to change much, it's just how you're going to be taught and what you know so that it can give information to the teachers, so it's not as scary as a big maths test," Jordan said.
"It's not grading you or anything, it's just going in a little section of your report," Caitlin said.
"We knew what it was going to be like through years of doing it, so you get more confident each time."
Hayley said NAPLAN was important, "but it's how they are going to improve the teaching, it's not testing you on what you're doing".
This will be the cohort's last year sitting NAPLAN.
"I'm not really fazed by it because we still have to do a lot of other hard things like the HSC and stuff," Jordan said.
"It's just one less thing to worry about," Hayley said.
Principal Paul Taylor said minor technical difficulties delayed the start of the paper by a few minutes, but there were no other problems.
Students sat the test in class groups in different areas, to reduce demand on the upgraded wifi network and any anxiety.
He said students will complete the tests over five or six days.
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Helen Gregory
Helen Gregory joined the Newcastle Herald in 2010. She is the masthead’s education reporter and has written for the H2 and Weekender sections, as well as across a range of issues. Helen is a Walkley Award winning journalist and was also part of the Newcastle Herald team that won the United Nations World Environment Day Media Award for Environmental Reporting.
Helen Gregory joined the Newcastle Herald in 2010. She is the masthead’s education reporter and has written for the H2 and Weekender sections, as well as across a range of issues. Helen is a Walkley Award winning journalist and was also part of the Newcastle Herald team that won the United Nations World Environment Day Media Award for Environmental Reporting.
