Investigators
Alanna Sincovich, Mary Brushe, Tess Gregory & Yasmin Harman-Smith
Project description
Researchers at the Institute were engaged to undertake the National School Readiness Project, which aimed to describe current practice across education authorities in assessing or describing child development status at school entry and use evidence to identify areas where the scope/quality of current assessments or data collections could be improved. This project was endorsed by Ministers as an action under the National School Reform Agreement, relating to the priority centred on improving national data quality in consistency and collection.
The project consisted of three key activities:
- Review of on-entry assessment across school sectors and jurisdictions to provide a comprehensive stocktake of current practice in Australia.
- National stakeholder consultations to identify gaps and limitations in current practice, highlighting where future work may be required to improve quality of on-entry assessment.
- Review of scientific evidence to guide development of a summary of best practice regarding assessments used to describe children’s development at school entry.
Ultimately, this research sought to highlight where and how current practice aligns with best practice according to the international scientific literature in order to determine the direction of future approaches in assessing child development in the first year of school across Australia.
For further information about the project and its findings, contact Alanna Sincovich.
Funders
Department for Education, South Australia