Updates bring up renewed My School dislike
The My School website was updated this week, and has already been criticised by the New South Wales Education Minister.
The site has been modified to include the latest NAPLAN data, showing student performance in reading, writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation and numeracy tests.
The updated website also has a mapping function, which allows parents to assess schools within a particular area.
But NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli says it should not be up at all.
Mr Piccoli says My School should be scrapped, as he believes it puts students under unnecessary stress and has failed to achieve it purpose, making it a waste of money too.
He says NAPLAN tests should remain, but the results should not be published for comparison.
“I think that sometimes the negative consequences of the My School website outweigh any positives that it provides,” he said in an ABC radio interview on Friday.
Mr Piccoli has suggested schools are being encouraged to teach to the test because the figures are used as a marketing tool. He says NAPLAN should remain a diagnostic tool, as it was established.
“I've been told a story of a kid in year 3 throwing up on the morning of the NAPLAN test because of the anxiety surrounding the tests,” he said.
“This stress never happened when we did Basic Skills testing in NSW because it was simply a diagnostic tool, it wasn't publicised.”
Mr Piccoli has not advocated that the state withdraw entirely, but has called for significant changes.