Crucial primary years
YEAR 3 and 5 is the first opportunity for parents to see quantitative data on their child’s academic performance and experts warn that parents must study it closely because small gaps in learning can create bigger problems in high school.
Rather than switching off and letting a child take control of their own learning, La Trobe University’s School of Education professor Craig Deed said parents must be more involved than ever.
“When you head toward grade five and six, it is pretty easy to back off and say that’s the teacher’s job. But I think the reverse is true especially after Covid,” he said.
“I reckon a lot of parents were helping with a lot of schoolwork for kids and that is all going to be gone.”
As subjects become more difficult and increasingly challenging, the biggest lesson they will learn is actually that learning is a difficult process and working out how to break down and overcome challenges.
“Parents just have to engage with what the student is doing. If a student says they’re not good at it, that is a natural part of the learning process to come up against issues and learn how to get over them,” he said.
When it came to mathematics, Flinders University’s Dr Carol Aldous said a parent’s attitude highly influenced how well a child did and it was important they adopted a “growth mindset”.
That means the students believe they can improve at a subject through practice, hard work and persistence – all things parents could model.
“It is more socially acceptable to say you’re not good at maths now than in the past … now it is almost a badge of honour in some instances,” she said.
She said that certainly was not a good thing, saying it was vital students committed their times tables to memory before the end of primary school so they could tackle more tricky topics like algebra in high school.
“If you have automated certain facts, it frees up your working memory to focus on the core issue in the problem,” she said.
Cluey Learning’s Dr Selina Samuels said parents will get NAPLAN results in Year 3 and Year 5 and parents should try to identify any weaknesses or where they perform below average and talk to their class teacher and contemplate getting them tutored to fix up learning gaps.
“It may be a short term need but early gaps can become chasms when you get to high school,” she said.
She also said parents should be thinking about if their child was suitable for selective school and to register for the test in Year 5 if they wanted to apply.
“I say to parents it is more than if they’re academically able, it is whether these are kids who really love the academic side of things and thrive in competitive environments,” she said.