School is in full swing, and you and your family are feeling the stress.
You try to give them the best education possible and give your children access to the best resources possible. These resources include private schools, but those come at a steep cost.
The average private school tuition in Australia can be as high as $43,000 per year.
If you are raising a family with multiple younger children, you may start to question how you are going to afford the best education for your children.
Well, the answer is for your children to get a private school scholarship.
There are several factors that go into who gets a scholarship. This includes grade point average, extracurricular activities, what students are involved in outside of their school, personal interview, and more.
One additional thing that gets put into the equation is their NAPLAN score.
What is the NAPLAN exam? What goes into how NAPLAN results are determined?
This is your guide.
What Is the NAPLAN Exam?
The NAPLAN (The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) Exam measures the skills of students in certain academic subjects. This includes things such as reading, grammar, mathematics, and writing.
There are four different times when a student inAustralia can be given a NAPLAN exam. Those four times normally occur in years three, five, seven, and nine.
Once a student completes the exam, an administrator will tally their scores in each subject. There will be a score for each subject in the exam and those scores will be combined to reach a total score.
It is essentially a test that measures how gifted children are in certain subjects and what skills need to be improved. The exam can give schools and teachers a much better idea of what type of kids they are dealing with and if a certain subject needs to be addressed.
Or, schools can find out if they have brighter kids in academics than they expected. It is generally beneficial for schools to have their students do well on these exams because the exams can be used as a measurement for school funding.
NAPLAN and Scholarships
So, the question is, how do these exam scores affect a student's chances at a scholarship? The answer is that private schools and well-regarded universities are only looking for the best of the best.
That means that they need to weed out applicants in anyway possible. Not only is a NAPLAN score important for getting a scholarship, but you may also need it to get accepted into a private school at all.
This is because some private schools have a minimum score threshold for acceptance into that school. You are likely going to have to score near the top of a class to have a chance at a scholarship.
While you may be able to make up for a slightly lower score with your grade point average, interview skills, and extracurricular activities, you need to keep in mind that there are still certain thresholds that you have to meet to be considered.
Improving Habits
Something that you can do before the exam is to improve the habits that your children have in their everyday life. An example could be how much time they spend playing video games and browsing the internet.
It is estimated that if children spend more than four hours per night playing video games or browsing the internet, then their NAPLAN score is likely going to suffer. Students in this category are 15% less likely to get a high reading score and 17% less likely chance to get a high numeracy score.
Let's compare this to kids who spend 1-2 hours or every night doing these same activities. They are the most likely to get a higher score because there is a moderate balance in downtime for children.
You see, it is not good for kids to be too focused on academics either because this can increase the chances of burnout. Children who spend an hour or less playing video games or browsing the internet per night are 13% less likely to get higher scores on NAPLAN than those who spend 1-2hours per night.
In other words, make sure that your kids have a little bit of a break from academics. However, make sure that it is only a minor break and that video games are not all that they are doing.
Taking Practice Tests
Finally, children have the option of finding practice tests for them to take. This can give them an idea of the types of questions and assignments that are going to be on a NAPLAN exam.
It gives them a chance to familiarise themselves with the testing style and a chance to go over material that they may have forgotten.Plus, it gives kids a chance to ask questions about certain subjects now before it is too late during the real test.
Get a Private School Scholarship
Having an excellent NAPLAN score can be a major piece of the puzzle to getting a private school scholarship. While there are other factors, it is one concrete measurement of academic skills that can separate some children from the rest.
It is important to dedicate some time to studying and taking practice tests to familiarise yourself with the material. If you do that and develop good study habits, you should be fine.
Do you want to start preparing for a NAPLAN exam? See our practice tests available to get started.
