WIMMERA and Grampians schools have welcomed potential changes to NAPLAN following an interim report into the test.
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The Victorian, NSW, Queensland and ACT governments released the report on Friday.
It sets out changes to overcome major issues such as changing the timing of the test to provide better data and limiting the availability of test data to discourage its use as a comparative tool for schools.
Stawell Secondary College principal Carlos Lopez said the changes up for discussion were positive, but they wouldn't change the way the school used its NAPLAN results.
"Moving testing from years seven and nine to years eight and 10 would be better for us in terms of data because it would better indicate how students were tracking," he said. "Testing students in year seven mostly shows how their learning was in year six."
Mr Lopez said the school saw NAPLAN as a way to see how the school was going generally, rather than to track individual student performance.
"The test is powerful when it is used to assess a cohort of students rather than trying to infer information about individuals," he said.
Mr Lopez said the practice of using NAPLAN results to compare schools raised many issues unless it was done using schools with a similar socio-economic context.
He said NAPLAN was only one part of the picture because it tested individual students on one particular day, at one particular time and that the data needed to be considered with other assessments.
"Australian teachers do a really good job of educating students," he said. "Focusing on NAPLAN creates an idea that teachers actually aren't doing their job properly, which is an unfair kick in the guts."
Horsham's Holy Trinity Lutheran College principal Daniel Weller said while the school saw the value in NAPLAN, it was a "snapshot" of student learning. He said the school would also use the results the same way if the years of testing were amended but said secondary-only schools would benefit most from that change.
"As a P-12 school we use the data differently," Mr Weller said.