00:01This is the fourth straight year we've got these really dire results and unfortunately
00:05scores are stagnating but there is sweeping reforms underway all the way through from
00:09universities to schools. The government's mandated changes to the way new teachers are
00:14taught at universities to embrace explicit instruction practices and they're also mandating
00:19that those lessons be taught in the classroom, tying them to school funding deals and school
00:24systems really right across the public and private school systems are embracing this
00:29style of teaching. Experts say it's kind of like turning around a massive ocean liner
00:33though we're talking about systems that educate more than four million Australian students
00:37so it takes time for those results to filter through and experts are saying it could be
00:42as long as five years before we see those reforms really bear fruit. The Education Minister Jason
00:47Clare was out today also talking about curriculum changes because one of the big things in this
00:52year's results was that year three numeracy scores were at record lows and he was talking about
00:57changes that are coming to the way our youngest learners are taught numeracy and here's what
01:02the Minister had to say.
01:03We're going to fix the curriculum to make it simpler and easier to teach. A lot of teachers
01:08and principals have told us that the first couple of years of the maths curriculum can be complicated
01:14and difficult to teach. You've got to teach it in the right order. Maths is sequential and
01:19so you learn different rules or principles. You've got to learn them in the right order to build
01:24on that knowledge. So the work that we're doing to fix the maths curriculum is important. I think
01:31that's underlined by the results today.
01:33So Connor, most parents would have seen natural land results for their children already.
01:39What should people be taking away from what those figures are telling them about how their
01:44child's performing?
01:45Yeah, look, it's important to note that this is just one test on one day. It's not the be all
01:50and end all. But it is worth paying attention to because it does test the kind of fundamental
01:54building blocks of every child's education, you know, their basic skills in literacy and
01:59numeracy. So if your child is in the two thirds of students that are doing strong or performing
02:03strong or exceeding and are meeting or exceeding those expectations, then you should just keep
02:08on doing what you're doing. If your child is among the hundreds of thousands of students
02:13who aren't meeting the expectations, it's worth interrogating that. The first step would
02:17be having a conversation with the school. Experts say that poor literacy is associated with poorer
02:24employment outcomes later in life and even healthier outcomes. So it is worth investigating
02:29what's going on.
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