A Catholic school cluster has shot to success in this year’s NAPLAN results, after abandoning failed teaching fads through the nation’s biggest experiment in the science of learning. Source: The Australian.
A return to the old-school teaching style of “direct instruction’’ has delivered academic dividends for 23,000 students at 56 Catholic schools in the ACT and Goulburn, based on the NAPLAN results for 9629 schools to be made public on today.
The Catholic schools make up 13 of the 20 schools flagged by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority as “making a difference’’ in the ACT.
Just a quarter of schools in the ACT are Catholic, yet they make up two-thirds of ACARA’s list of schools that out-performed others with a similar background of parental occupation and education.
For years, the Catholic schools had underperformed – until the Canberra-Goulburn Archdiocese embraced direct instruction, also known as “explicit teaching’’, through the Catalyst project in 2020.
Four years later, the schools have caught up to deliver their best-ever NAPLAN results.
“We’ve seen dramatic improvement,’’ Ross Fox, the director of Catholic Education for the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, said yesterday.
“We’re seeing students who fell behind making substantial progress to catch up because of our intervention programs, and we’re seeing time saved for teachers,” Mr Fox said.
“The incidence of disruptive behaviours has reduced, in part because our students are more engaged in their learning.’’
Mr Fox said teachers were saving five hours a week in lesson preparation because the Catalyst program provides high-quality lesson plans and “commonsense curriculum materials” used in all classrooms.
The Catalyst program is based on the scientific concept of “cognitive load theory’’, to ensure new information is embedded in students’ long-term memory. Students are not overwhelmed with new information, and are given time to practise and repeat concepts until they’ve mastered them.
Teachers direct and closely monitor students’ learning – a reversal of the failed fad of “student-directed learning’’ that expected students to “lead their own learning journey’’.
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NAPLAN 2024: Return to old-school teaching methods sends students’ results through roof (By Natasha Bita, The Australian)
