Eloquently put Mr Cullen.

What has happened to the understanding of developmental learning.
The National Curriculum appears to have developed a one size fits all approach

We accept developmental learning in the crawling-walking-talking stage but seem to reject it where literacy and numeracy are concerned

Lack of understanding of a students growth and development in any learning context is as fear-producing as testing

Perhaps we need to look at teacher training as a first then provide curriculum, teachers, and resources which support childrens developmental learning

Teachers must be trained to understand the developmental heirarchy, assess the students place on that heirarchy and teach individuals or groups from that understanding.

Multiage grouping in schools was,in general, not understood but tried to provide a situation where children could flourish at their own level.

Sir,
I just sent the following comment
Kellie Tranter:

It is overwhelming.

Our young people die in Afghanistan for a PM’s opinion, a PM fixated with exams and uniforms.

What exams did she pass to qualify for the job?

Shouldn’t she wear a uniform?

In my times, in Italy, I had to wear a uniform as the PM did and so did Hitler, Stalin, and Franco.

@"The child-oriented ones, who want their pupils to turn up anxious to learn and enjoy each piece of their learning experiences, will vote for the party that will ban the tests."

Possibly, but the majority will vote for the party that they think will get their kids higher marks in tests. That's the way it is. And many of them will be asking why, if testing is so wrong, none of the things tried in the pre-testing decades seemed any better.

Many will also be arguing that the tests are long overdue to address situations in which the teachers in one local (NSW) primary school interpret the Departmental assessment guidelines as meaning that children in the first half of a two-year stage must be awarded Bs or lower while in a nearby school in less advantaged area they will not award anything lower than a B. This utterly confuses parents of both schools who interact socially and see the kids from both schools in comparable situations such as socials after Saturday sport.

In my times, in Italy, I had to wear a uniform as the PM did and so did Hitler, Stalin, and Franco.
Skeptic,
Nowadays the uniform has been replaced by meaningless educational certificates..

It seems to me our Mr Cullen has had ample opportunity to put his ideas into practice. The results speak for them selves. There aren't any.

I find that it is teachers, & education departments, not kids, that are most worried about tests.

Sure the teachers have done their best to instill the fear of tests into their students, but they don't seem to be any more successful at that, than they were in stilling the 3 Rs into them. Only a few are throwing up in fear.

Not so the teachers. They are throwing up all over the place, with verbal garbage at least. They are scared stiff that their pay master, the public, will be able to see what a damn awful job they have been doing. Hell, they can't even be bothered making sure kids aren't being belted up in the play ground.

Tests never worried anyone when I went to school. Many didn't care about results, so weren't worried. Some cared, & did a bit of study, & may have even learnt something. Teachers got a line on how kids were going, & most used this info to help many kids.

Tests helped get kids ready for life in the work force, where their performance would be judged daily, unless they worked for the education department that is.

You know, if we still had report cards which actually said this kid got 35, or 95% on some test, it might even help employers hire the right kids, for the right jobs to the advantage of both of them.

I agree with you entirely, Phil. As Sir Ken Robinson, an influential thinker on education from the UK put it, things are so bad in the Anglophone education systems such as we have in Australia, the UK and the USA, that we need revolution, not evolution, in education. The whole system needs to be overhauled to be centred on individual children's learning trajectories rather than treating them as factory products, with learning forced into them in extremely boring ways, and to nurture creativity rather than mindless conformity to standardised norms.

Why didn't Julia consult experts in the Finnish system of education, which leads the OECD countries in results, yet places little emphasis on standardised testing and is far more relaxed and flexible in its approach? For an intelligent woman she is remarkably pig-headed and reluctant to look at alternatives to the New York system which she so inexpicably favours as a model for Australia.

How to start this revolution in education?