One in five children leave primary school with only scant literacy and numeracy. But it’s not too late, a new report finds, if proper measures are put in place.
Just over half of all secondary teachers and principals say their schools identify and put in place remedial actions for year 7 students who arrive without even basic levels of literacy or numeracy, new research has found.they put in place are effective in turning around academic underachievement.
Jenny Donovan, chief executive of the Australian Education Research Organisation , which conducted the study, says low literacy and numeracy levels are compounded in high school because it is assumed those skills were acquired during primary school.“The problem is that secondary schools are about the curriculum and disciplines. You have a history teacher, a maths teacher, a science teacher, but you don’t have a generalist teacher who is really focused on individual students,” Dr Donovan said.
“We don’t equip teachers with the necessary skills. We don’t equip schools with the necessary resources. We haven’t equipped the systems with the necessary carrots and sticks.”Digby Mercer is one principal who is doing something about it. For 13 years, as principal of Como Secondary College in Perth, he has tested every child entering year 7 for basic literacy and numeracy, as well as engaging with feeder primary schools well before the children transition into high school.
While Mr Mercer describes his school as “very middle class” and representative of the broader Perth community, he has children arrive in year 7 who do not even know the alphabet. Others will be at year 2 level of reading “and still five years behind where they need to be”. Some are more advanced but still need remedial attention.
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