The dangers of regular school reporting

November 2, 2005

It really isn't helpful to students to tell them they are failing, writes Jenny Allum.

SO BRENDAN Nelson, the federal Minister for Education, wants schools to report to parents in quartile bands on their children's achievement in each subject from kindergarten to year 12.

Naturally, it is important to identify students who are underperforming, especially in literacy and numeracy, soon after they start school.

It is also important to put in place early strategies for the remediation of literacy and other learning problems and to tell parents how their children are progressing and how they can support them at home.

Which do you think is a more helpful report for Mary, in year 1, on the reading strand of the English program?

Report 1: "Mary loves books and is able to recognise some common words quite quickly. However, she has difficulties with reading, and is not yet reading to her age level. Extra assistance through the learning support program at school and the support you are providing at home will help her improve."

Report 2: "Mary is in the bottom 25 per cent of her class for reading."

One reason schools and teachers argue so strongly against Nelson's requirement to report using quartiles is that it can damage students' self-esteem. A few years of being told they are in the bottom 25 per cent of a class would result in an unmotivated student who feels like a failure, and is alienated from learning and unwilling to continue to strive and work in the classroom in an engaged manner.

It really isn't helpful to tell students they are failing. It is important to tell them what they can and can't do, in detail, and what they can do to improve. We need to describe to students the outcomes of their learning and what might be the next goal or series of goals to aim at.

The context is also important. A student in the bottom 25 per cent of a selective high school, for example, might be in the top 25 per cent at a comprehensive school. The number is meaningless. And to report the number skews the students' attention and that of their parents towards that number and away from a useful description of what is happening with his or her learning.

The use of bald quartile bands does nothing to improve teaching and learning. It isn't helpful, it is damaging. It fails to account for individual development and offers no solutions.

And 25 per cent of students will always lie in the bottom quartile.

Their education is as important as that of students in any other quartile. The concern is how to improve their learning. One cannot do that by sending home to parents "bottom 25 per cent", which will be considered a failure.

Schools should point to the growth that students are making and can make in the future; they must offer students at every quartile ways they can improve, ways they and their parents can feel positive about their progress, while ensuring parents understand how their children is performing.

No one benefits from an underclass of alienated, bottom-ranked children, or adults, for that matter.

In particular, ranking students into quartile bands (or any other ranking) in the younger years of primary school is damaging. Academic achievement in these years depends greatly on their maturity and social skills.

To judge a student as being in the bottom quartile is not a good predictor of academic achievement or potential for later years.

Einstein, for example, couldn't speak fluently until he was nine and was considered slow in primary school.

It would be a sad day in Australia if we educators simply accepted Nelson's regulations without comment.

Jenny Allum is the head of SCEGGS, Darlinghurst.
