YES Hands On ! Real world experience.
As a parent the Naplan testing is the only HONEST indicator of how a individual school performs in regards to academics, because as a parent one needs to know the strengths & focus of each individual schools agenda.
Parents may not realize that many schools focus on many different facets, that being Academics / Arts / Trades / Sport etc.
It's great if a parent can locate a school that can accomplish all of the above feats, but past experience as a parent over the last 20 years has found that many schools tend to give their priority focus predominately on just facet of education, many schools focus on sport & the arts.
Many parents put an emphasis on other things rather than academics, that being sport, arts etc. & that's all good, each to their own.
From my positive experience of the Naplan, it gives parents an independent internal look at the schools strengths in regards to writing/reading arithmetic etc, this is of most importance when both the parents & the child wants the best academic outcome, especially if their focus will be on University.
I personally as parent actually used the Naplan results from the initial school that we chose for our daughter, to make a decision to remove her from that particular school, & found another somewhat further away that has now enabled her to currently be doing her double degree & achieving near perfect results & positioning herself on the deans list of her University on 4 occasions out of 5 semesters.
Had we not had the independent Naplan information results, for the first initial school that we had chosen, & not removed her from that particular school she may very well not be achieving the high university results that she is now.
That's why as a parent I'm very much in favor of "National Naplan Testing" especially in Qld where academics in many schools is lacking the southern states.
MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF NAPLAN ! AAA+++
G64
