Press Conference - Sydney

JASON YAT-SEN LI: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Croydon Park Public School in the electorate of Strathfield, one of the great - we're so lucky, one of the great schools that we have in our area. Really pleased to be joined by the federal Education Minister, Jason Clare, and the Deputy Premier and the New South Wales Education Minister, Prue Car, the Education Secretary Murat, and the Principal of Croydon Park Public School, Anna O’Connor. 

So, as I said, we are very lucky in our local area right across the electorate of Strathfield with Croydon, Auburn, Strathfield, Homebush, Homebush West, Enfield. We have fantastic schools, and we have fantastic teachers. And we have fantastic students who give their all every single day, and we have fantastic families – parents and carers who want the best for their kids, who have big aspirations for their kids and big expectations of our education system. 

So families from right across Sydney come to this area in order to have the best education for their kids. And that’s why the investment from the federal government and the state government not just in the physical infrastructure of the schools but in teaching – in teaching quality, in early intervention, in standards – is just so important. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. 

So let me hand over to Jason Clare, the federal Education Minister. 

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Thanks, Jase. Good morning, everybody. Well, it’s NAPLAN day. Results are out today, and there’s some good news in maths in Year 5, in Year 7 and in Year 9. We’re seeing results going up and up. They’re heading in the right direction. That’s good news. It’s a different story for Year 3 maths, and the evidence out today about Year 3 maths reassures me that the work that we’re doing as education ministers across the country is important and is what we need to do. 

The first of those is the rollout of Year 1 numeracy check. And New South Wales has led the way on this with the pilot of the numeracy check last year and then a numeracy check in every New South Wales public school this year. South Australia is doing the same. Most states are piloting it as well this year. That’s important as a check early on to see if our children have got the skills that they need when they’re very, very young. So that’s the first thing. 

The second is the changes that we need to make to the curriculum from the first year of school – kindy or prep – through to Year 2 in maths. We’ve got to fix the curriculum to make it simpler and easier to teach. A lot of teachers and principals have told us that the first couple of years of the maths curriculum can be complicated and difficult to teach. You’ve got to teach it in the right order. Maths is sequential, and so you learn different rules or principles. You’ve got to learn them in the right order to build on that knowledge. So the work that we’re doing to fix the maths curriculum is important. I think that’s underlined by the results today. And the changes to the maths curriculum for the first three years of school will be presented to education ministers when we meet in October. 

On reading, I think the challenges are pretty clear. And what works is clear as well. We know what works to teach kids to read. The reading wars are over. We know it’s phonics that works. It’s evidence-based teaching that works, and it’s small group tutoring that works. That’s where you get children who might be falling behind into a group of two or three or four, and you give them intensive support every day of the week for half an hour. We know that when you do that, kids who fall behind can catch up. And if you want evidence of that, then come and have a look at what’s happening right here at Croydon Park Public School. 

The results, the NAPLAN results, for Croydon Park Public School tell us what works: that when you put that all together – evidence-based teaching, phonics, breaking words up into sounds, small group tutoring – then you get the results that we’re looking for. The NAPLAN results today for Croydon Park Public School show that they’ve gone up and up and up because of the hard work that they’ve been doing over the last few years in reading. 

We need to now roll that out right across the country. And that’s what the agreements that I’ve struck with every state and territory are all about – fixing the funding of our schools so our schools are funded based on need and tying that funding to reform based on evidence, the evidence of what we know works. The best example that I can think of is what’s happening right here in Croydon Park. That’s how you change a system that’s treading water into one that’s really swimming. 

I might hand over to Prue to say a few words. 

PRUE CAR, NSW DEPUTY PREMIER AND MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Thanks, Jason. Really proud to be here at one of our excellent public schools here in the inner west of Sydney led by a fantastic leader in Anna O’Connor. Look, the results here at Croydon Park do tell a story of improvement in New South Wales. In today’s results, NAPLAN results, we can see that New South Wales is above the national average in all ages and domains, but we are particularly pleased and take comfort in the improvement from Year 3 to Year 5 in a few of those domains. That means that our reforms when it comes to embedding explicit teaching, ending the reading wars and really doubling down on phonics, instituting the numeracy check and really making sure that we're teaching according to evidence, that is actually starting to show some green shoots. 

The thing is about teaching based on evidence is that so many schools were doing this for so many years. The difference is now we have a government in New South Wales and a government nationally that now backs the evidence and backs the expertise of our teachers. It shows it works, making sure that we’re actually teaching explicitly, ensuring that where students need additional support – that’s the actual purpose of NAPLAN – we can identify the students that need additional support, that we are able to take them and give that intervention early. As I said, the improvements from Year 3 to Year 5 show that some of our reforms are starting to show green shoots. 

Of course there is more work to do, in particular, we’re concerned about writing. I know that parents across New South Wales are concerned about this and that they're constantly asking me and speaking to their schools and teachers and principals about the impact of technology and the impact of devices. At our last EMM meeting – education ministers meeting – I did ask the Commonwealth agency to have a look at maybe going back to pen and paper tests for NAPLAN writing for Years 5, 7 and 9 based on what the evidence is that tells us that little brains learn differently when you’re writing things down as opposed to typing. 

So we’re not standing still when it comes to the improving results of our students. This is the major priority of the Minns Labor government. We have invested a record amount in the fiscal buildings of our schools. We have invested a record amount in the teachers in front of the students in those classrooms, giving them the biggest pay rise in a generation, making 25,000 of them and the support staff they work with permanent, trusting their expertise when it comes to the way that they teach. Education is a complex endeavour. We’re talking about tens of thousands of little people that start with us when they’re 4 or 5 and leave when they’re young men and women, and we are determined to make sure they’re ready for the world. 

Really happy to hand over to the excellent principal of this public school, Anna O’Connor. 

ANNA O’CONNOR: Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Lovely to have you here at Croydon Park Public School. At Croydon Park Public School we are so excited by the progress shown by our students. This is evident in our NAPLAN results, yes, but it’s also evident in our day-to-day work and all of the internal things that we have happening. 

We have a sustained focus on explicit teaching here at Croydon Park Public School, and this has been for at least four years, where teachers are really clear with students. Students are given the modelling, the guided support, and then the independent practice to be able to succeed. We have great improvements across the board in all reading, writing and numeracy. Things are very exciting here. 

We also have a lot of support for our students thanks to the small group tuition program. So students that do struggle a little bit with their phonics or do struggle with their numeracy are given the support that they need. Of course, importantly, that in-class support is so, so important and our teachers providing that support, but sometimes withdrawal just gives them that little bit extra support. So we’re really, really pleased with our results. And we know that there is a little way to go, and we’re always on that journey of continuous improvement. 

CAR: Happy to take questions. 

JOURNALIST: Minister Car, how true is it that compared to last year a higher share of children in 3, 5 and 7 and 9 were at the lowest level for reading support? 

CAR: Yeah, look, part of the purpose of NAPLAN is identifying students that need that additional support. We want to be able to identify them to then be able to withdraw them in small group tuition. That’s actually the purpose of this national testing – so we can actually get in there and improve the results not just for the next NAPLAN test for those students but for all of their learning. And the thing with the NAPLAN test is they test fundamental foundational skills that you need across all subject areas – writing, adding up, using numbers, constructing an argument in terms of writing, grammar, punctuation, all that sort of foundational skill-based stuff.

But, look, we know that there is more work to do. We’re seeing promising signs, particularly from Year 3 and Year 5, but we want to know the students that need additional support so we can actually intervene as early as possible. And we’ve put more funding into small group tuition than ever before thanks to the funding from the state government in partnership with the Commonwealth Government. 

We’re going to start seeing those results. Things are lagging, indicators in education, because it takes some time. You invest in year 1, and that’s not going to at least show until year 3 or year 5. And so we’re only testing every two years. So we have to be in it for the long haul. It is a long-term investment, and we hope to see those results come to pass. 

JOURNALIST: Just on switching to pen and paper for the testing, what was the response from the other ministers when you brought that up? Is that something that might actually be on the cards? 

CAR: Yeah, look, I might say the other ministers were keen to have that conversation. I’m talking about particularly the writing element of the NAPLAN test in 5, 7 and 9. Year 3 is handwritten. Coincidentally, the Year 3 results in writing are a bit better. They decline from 5, 7 and 9. There’s obviously a lot going on there. Education is very complex. I’m not saying that that is the whole answer. In addition to that, some of the computer systems didn’t work on the day of the NAPLAN writing test, so while you can’t sheet it all home to that, it certainly did not help. But there is an argument that I have learned from education experts that a child’s mind learns differently when you write it down. I think even as adults we know that – when you write things down, it gets into your brain easier than when you’re typing. 

The other thing I would say is that – and this is understandable – when we have a computer-based test in 5, 7 and 9, we can’t blame our teachers for wanting to get our students prepared for that computer-based test by introducing computers earlier. So it’s actually having an impact on when we’re introducing computers in the classroom. And as education ministers – or as minister in New South Wales, the biggest state or territory in the country, my job is to actually what is the evidence, what does it show and what is best for our students. And I’m really keen to see what comes back about pen and paper, because I think that it may show that that may be a good way forward. 

JOURNALIST: Minister Clare, this year there was a technical glitch. How do you think that impacted, and what are you going to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again? 

CLARE: Yeah, the advice from ACARA is that it didn’t have an obvious or real impact on the writing test, which is welcome news. But I think I can speak on behalf of all education ministers how angry we were that happened in the first place. That’s why I called in ACARA and ESA on the day that it happened and met with them daily in the days that NAPLAN took place after that. We also asked them to appear before the meeting of education ministers a couple of weeks ago and explain why it happened and give us assurances that it wouldn’t happen again. 

Maybe just to elaborate on the previous question as well, just to confirm that the view of education ministers is we do need to do this work and think about whether it would be a good thing to do the change, the writing test, to make it pen and paper for years 5, 7 and 9. So we’ll get that advice coming back to us. In a lot of the feedback from ministers is we need to have a look at the amount of time that students are on devices in schools, particularly in primary schools. Some of the writing results today, you know, make me wonder whether young people today are spending so much time writing texts, short messages rather than long-form paragraphs, it’s having an impact on their writing. 

We had a bit of a discussion at our last meeting about the impact of artificial intelligence in schools as well and agreed as part of that meeting that we want to bring back a paper on that so that we can have a look at what the impact of it is, not just in the way in which you assess students but how you protect students’ privacy and also how do we make sure that students are learning rather than just relying on an AI prompt. So there’s a lot of work to do. 

JOURNALIST: In the past some teachers and educators have criticised NAPLAN. Do you still believe it’s the best way to test our kids? 

CLARE: I think it’s very important. You know, for mums and dads it helps them to know where their children are at. For teachers it provides information on where different students in the classroom are at. One of the things that we’ve done here is not just bring the test forward from May to March but bring forward the results back to teachers. I think when I got this job originally, it was three months before teachers got those results. They now get them back a lot quicker. And for ministers like ourselves, it helps us to know what’s working and what’s not, where we need to focus our reforms. 

So, again, you know, what these results tell us today, I think, is the work we're doing in Year 3 maths is important. Early checking before you do the test when you're in Year 1, fixing the curriculum for teachers so that it’s more sequential and easier to teach, but it also tells me – and I said there’s big challenges in reading, but the wars are over. We know what works here. You look at some of the schools that have been implementing these reforms for years, and you can see their results start to take off. And Prue made the point that this doesn’t just happen overnight. This is hard yakka. It means long-term consistent work. 

If you look at what the Poms are doing, they’ve been doing this for years. They put in place a phonics check in 2012. We did it this year for the first time. We’re 15 years behind them. And you’re seeing their results get better and better and better as a result of rolling out phonics and the phonics check and all the sort of reforms we’re doing now. This sort of stuff should have happened 10 years ago. It’s happening now because of our governments and governments like ours across the country, but we’ve got to keep at it. 

JOURNALIST: The Smith Family suggested that the students who have fallen behind, they might need catch-up tutoring, but I guess people with lower socioeconomic backgrounds with cost of living might not be able to afford that. Are there any plans to support students who might be falling behind and get that extra tutoring? 

CLARE: Yeah, well, great question. Tutoring costs a fortune, and there are parents across the country who are spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to help their children get ready for exams or to catch up. What we’re doing here is free tutoring in school, in school time, for the kids who need it. That’s what fixing the funding of our public schools is fundamentally all about – helping to make sure that kids who fall behind catch up and more kids finish school than ever before. 

And so the agreements that we’ve struck, for example, with the New South Wales Government, mean more than an extra $5 billion over the next 10 years to public schools, funding based on need so, you know, the more disadvantaged the school, the more funding they get, and to fund things like the small group tutoring, where, as I said, you identify the child, whether it’s through NAPLAN or through another screening process like a phonics check, get them in a small group of one, two, three or four children half an hour a day, four or five days a week, the evidence shows us that when you do that the right way that a children can learn as much in six months as they normally learn in 12 months. And so, in other words, they catch up. 

Now, why is that important? Because if you catch up when you’re really young and you keep up, you’re more likely to finish high school. A child who falls behind when they’re 8 or 9 and never catches up, by the time they’re 15 in Year 9, they’re way behind, and they’re the child that is more likely to stare blankly at the board and not know what’s going on and think school’s not for them. Small group tutoring can be life-changing, and that’s why we’re investing in it. 

JOURNALIST: This might be one for Minister Car. In particular in New South Wales, there’s a third of year 9 students who aren’t meeting minimum literacy standards, a third of year 3 students aren’t meeting minimum numeracy standards. What’s being done to support those students? 

CAR: Yeah, I mean, the answer really is that small group tutoring. And, look, I can’t actually say it enough – it’s actually one of the most important ways based on the evidence we can actually intervene. The purpose really of NAPLAN is to identify those students that need that support. So we actually want to know those students that need that help so then we can withdraw them and actually put time, put an expert teacher with them one on one or one to two, three or four and actually get them up to scratch. That’s one of the things that’s made such a difference here at Croydon Park, is the small group tutoring. 

So the thing about small group tutoring, intervention, the thing about phonics, the thing about explicit teaching is it works across the board no matter what school you're in, what mum and dad earn, what area you're from, what your cultural background is. It is totally blind to all of that and it just works, and that’s what we’re investing in. 

JOURNALIST: When will the government fix the so-called widow tax? Will that be done before the end of the year? 

CLARE: We said we would make amendments to fix that, and I think you’ll see that in the exposure draft of the bill that’s being released by the Treasurer. And that consultation wraps up, I think, towards the end of this month. 

JOURNALIST: Why did the government not foreshadow that tax when it was rushed through the reforms earlier this year? 

CLARE: I think we did. I think if you refer to the comments the Treasurer has made, he’s confirmed our intention to make those changes. 

JOURNALIST: Just on the gambling reforms, is the government willing to make any concessions on its gambling reforms to get the support of the Greens or the Coalition? 

CLARE: I think this government has done more than any other government to tackle gambling and the harms associated with gambling. The legislation that’s in the parliament right now makes some important changes to stop gambling advertising on television and on radio, and that complements a number of other reforms that have already been implemented. You know, there’s been some shocking evidence that’s been given before that parliamentary inquiry this week, and they’re the sorts of serious allegations that I think should be investigated by the police. 

JOURNALIST: So given those stories and that shocking evidence, are you doing enough? You know, regardless of what you’re doing in this bill, is it even enough? 

CLARE: Well, the Bill is about advertising. The allegations that were made are about crimes that have potentially been committed. And that’s the responsibility of the police to investigate, and I hope they do. 

JOURNALIST: Just on the NPC, why was Tony Burke’s address cancelled? 

CLARE: I don’t have any detail on that. I think it’s been rescheduled. The general point I’d make on migration is that we’ve cut the net overseas migration rate over the last few years by almost 50 per cent.