Parents will get access to pupils’ test results

THE results of English and maths tests taken by about 65,000 primary pupils will be made available to all parents for the first time from the upcoming school year.

While standardised literacy and numeracy tests have been carried out in all primary schools for many years, a small number have not always provided the information to parents afterwards.

However, the standardised testing scheme introduced by Education Minister Mary Hanafin from next month will ensure that schools give all relevant information to their pupils’ parents.

The Department of Education will only collect the results from disadvantaged schools in an effort to monitor progress based on increased resources to areas where children are more likely to have literacy or numeracy difficulties.

However, the results from a representative sample of all schools will be sent to the Educational Research Centre at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, and the findings will help inform school curriculum development.

“Having information on literacy and numeracy will support teaching, it will help us look at teacher training, develop new methods and identify some of the targeted responses that work, like the reading recovery or maths recovery programme used in some schools,” said Ms Hanafin. “There are lots of ways it can be used but we’ve given absolute guarantees that the outcomes won’t be used to decide a school’s resources or anything like that.”

From next month, primary schools must give the tests to children at two stages in their primary education. The first test will be taken at the end of first class or the beginning of second class, followed by a second assessment at the end of fourth or start of fifth class.

A new system of report cards for parents, developed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, will include space for test results to be conveyed. They will also give teachers understandable ways of explaining each pupil’s progress at learning and their social and creative development.

The programme has the support of teachers, following initial concerns when the idea was first proposed by Ms Hanafin’s predecessor Noel Dempsey in 2004.