SM,

I've read about and heard of children being uncommonly stressed because of NAPLAN testing.

My son doesn't do NAPLAN, but then in a one on one situation, I'm aware of his strengths and weaknesses - and we're not competing with other schools for funding or reputation.

Found this article which is based on a survey of 8,300 teachers - might be helpful.

http://theconversation.com/testing-the-test-naplan-makes-for-stressed-kids-and-a-narrow-curriculum-10965

Poirot,

Other than the 8300 teachers surveyed, there is not a single number. We have "some", "a number" etc, is it 5 or 5000?

My wife was a senior school English teacher until recently, and is yet to hear of any specific examples, and while my "evidence" is only anecdotal, I remain sceptical.

SM,

I think you'll find that weighty series of tests, most of significant duration, are far more challenging and stressful to the age bracket encompassing grade 3 and grade 5 than they would be to a high school student.

The examples I'm familiar with are at primary school level.

Poirot when training show jumpers we have a technique called "old hat".

It really is quite simple, it is basically a familiarisation system.

The first time a horse sees a wall constructed of old car tyres, they are terrified by it. All those holes & gaps, where something horrible might be hiding. Jump that, no way says the sensible horse. Build one in their paddock, & curiosity will have them knock it down a few times, first in fear, then in fun.

Our stallion ended up cantering around the paddock carrying a tyre in his mouth, but then, he is quite a horse.

The same goes for jumping into , or over water, shinny planks, or imitation brick walls, etc. It takes a couple of years for them to consider all the things course builders use as "old hat" & familiar. Ultimately they believe that if you ask them to do it, it must be safe, & do-able for them. That is how you form a partnership with your horse.

Kids aren't much different, except that they can't carry you so far. Most are frightened of the unknown.

That's why exams had no fear for most kids in my day. We had done major exams twice a year for years, by the time we were in senior school. They were old hat. The only ones who had a problem with exams were those who would never be any good in difficult situations, or those who's parents made them apprehensive by demanding too much, or by severely punishing poor results.

People who can't handle any stress are limited in life, by that. Schools should introduce stress in increasing doses to kids through out their school career, to enable them to function out in the big nasty world, when the time comes. No one will be running interference, & eliminating stress for them out there.

I believe the rejection of exams has nothing to do with kids, & everything to do with inferior teachers. They are the ones feeling the stress, & should be, until they lift their game, or get out.

Poirot,

The Naplan tests are done over several days, and consist mostly of multiple choice. The stress can only come if the children are fearful of doing badly. As I said previously my experience (which does not count for much here) is that I have yet to meet the parent of a kid that felt "stress". I only ever heard about "stressed kids" when Naplan began to be published. I spent some time last night scanning a few blogs with regards this topic, and as far as I could see, everyone had heard of this stress, yet no one knew of any one that had.

My suspicion is that of the hundreds of thousands of pupils, that there are only a tiny proportion actually suffering from stress.

There should be no surprise in 'teach to the test' for NAPLAN. This form of national standardized testing has been researched in the USA for many years. There is an extensive series of reports from RAND on what standardized performance assessment of students, teachers and schools does. The research shows that such testing is of limited value and can lead to rigging of the system by individual teachers, schools and whole education sectors: http://www.rand.org/topics/educational-program-evaluation.html

Some standardized testing is useful for quality control, to see how things are going generally. But in my view, the current emphasis on "schools" is a distraction from where education is heading: on-line. There seems to be the idea still current that what students should do is sit silently in straight rows listening to the teacher, absorbing knowledge and then reproducing it on the examination. This is not a very useful, or cost effective, way to do education.

ps: I will be speaking on "MOOCs with Books" at CSIRO in Canberra, 8 July 2013: http://moocs.eventbrite.com.au/