For anyone interested in education in Australia, the release of the latest National Assessment Program, Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) results on the My School Website and the launch of the corresponding report by Schools Minister Peter Garrett last week will be met with mixed feelings.

On the one hand, the overall reading results of Indigenous primary and secondary school students have improved in the past four years. Most notably the 2011 report reveals an increase of almost 12 per cent in the number of Indigenous Year 3 students reading above the national minimum standard. However, the situation in the Northern Territory, where just 40 per cent of Year 3 kids achieved the minimum standard, is much less promising.

Despite widespread commitment to the slogan of “closing the gap” in Australian education, NAPLAN results showed a growing divide between top and bottom students, and growing disparity of outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.

According to the report, in the Northern Territory, “the percentage of indigenous students achieving at the national minimum standard in each domain is less than half that of non-indigenous students, except in numeracy, where it is almost two-thirds”. At Year 9 level, just over 86 per cent of non-indigenous students and only 55 per cent of indigenous students were reading above the national minimum standard.

Each year since the NAPLAN was introduced in 2008, over one million year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students sit the test in order to ascertain performance in areas of literacy and numeracy and to support improvements in teaching and learning. While the NAPLAN is only one measurement of learning and progress, it is one of many indicators pointing to the urgent need to generate innovative and creative initiatives to improve quality and equity in the Australian education system.

More great news! The Honey Ant Readers are now available from the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) Website.

https://shop.acer.edu.au/acer-shop/group/HON/X

ACER is a not-for-profit organisation, independent of government that aims to create and promote research-based knowledge, products and services that can be used to improve learning across the life span. A significant research body in Australia, it aims to assist educational decision makes with their collection, analysis, interpretation and use of reliable data on education.

We are delighted to be affiliated with an organisation such as ACER, that endeavours to promote better outcomes for all learners through informing evidence-based policies and quality practices in education.

Photos from the 2011 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Conference (NATSIEC) , Strong Start, Bright Future held in Darwin, 17-20 October 2011 are now up on their website, providing a good opportunity to reflect on the conference, its themes and the way forward in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education.
The conference was attended by teachers, researchers, policy-makers, elders, students, parents-everyone involved in education. Overall, it stressed the importance of addressing educational opportunities and outcomes “from birth to employment” and developing strategies at all levels of action, from policy, to communities, schools and families.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Action Plan 2010-2014 was a central focus of the conference with 6 areas identified as having the most impact on ‘closing the gap’:
• Readiness for school
• Engagement and connections
• Attendance
• Literacy and Numeracy
• Leadership, quality teaching and workforce development
• Pathways to real post-school options

It was a wonderful opportunity to hear about the exciting initiatives in Indigenous education and meet individuals like Dr Chris Sarra Prof Colleen Hayward, Prof Sven Silburn, Yalmay Yunupingu among many others committed to raising expectations and seeing real progress towards a ‘bright future’ for our kids.
As you can see in the photo above, the Honey Ant Readers had a big, colourful stall –which became a place of vibrant discussion and sharing of ideas between sessions!
More photos of the event are on their website: http://www.natsiec2011.org/image-gallery
We’ re looking forward to NATSIEC 2012!

Last week, Yipirinya School, invited HAR author Margaret James to participate in their end of the year festivities: parents’ day, prize giving and a fantastic Christmas party.
At the prize-giving ceremony, there was a clear correlation between attendance awards, high scores and academic prizes-in other words-students who are coming to school are getting results! We were so proud of the students’ hard work, and the efforts of their fantastic teachers and tutors. We have also been thrilled to see the HAR, originally targeted for Yipirinya students, showing big improvements in their reading. A great example is a year 4 student, who started on book 1 18 months ago and is now up to book 14 and able to read at least 140 words!!

The following day, the kids were treated to a Christmas party, with a feast of roast chicken, veggies and Xmas pudding, a concert and swimming in the new school pool. The highlight of the day was a visit from Santa Claus who arrived amidst loud cheers of “we want Santa”, looking a little hot in the 38 degree heat. Next year he may need to come prepared for Southern Hemisphere Christmas, perhaps in a lighter suit or fan under his beard?!

We wish everyone a very happy, healthy and safe Christmas season and look forward to working in many more schools with many more wonderful students in 2012.

This week ‘nana honey ant’ went west into Australia’s most remote community, to visit the wonderful children and teachers who live in real ‘honey ant’ country and are using the HARs in schools, libraries and communities!

This photgraph are taken in Warburton school library working with teacher Gary Hopkins. The Shire of Ngaanyatjarraku in WA spreads over an area of 159,948 square kilometres, stretching right up to the NT border. Located approximately 1,542km from Perth and 1,397 from Alice Springs, it is one of the most remote areas in the country. The population of about 1,800 comprises mainly Ngaanyatjarra people and the language spoken is “Ngaanyatjarra”. “Ku” means “to belong” in Ngaanyatjarra.

Last week Yipirinya School elders, Amelia Turner, Benedict Stevens, Patrick Nandy, Matthew Palmer and Jungala Kris came together to read the new book ‘Colours’, the first book in the ‘Speaking’ series, written in Standard English for parents to read with their children.

Their collaboration and feedback is invaluable to make sure that the Honey Ant Readers are relevant, appropriate and engaging for their kids.

Amelia said, “This book makes them (the readers) realise what really happens with colours. Kids will like P49 because they like wearing bright clothes. P61 is good because it teaches the kids how nature works. … The books isn’t just about colours and nice pictures, it is also about Science. They are going to look at what happens in the day.
P57 is good for our kids and adults because these are birds the kids in the Centre know. Page 25, the kangaroo. This is good because we can talk about how we also have red and brown kangaroos too.
The animals on P 35 are also food,. We talk about which animals is good and which is bad. The first thing kids look at is colours so they will want to read this book.”

Benedict Stevens said:
“The HAR are important because they recognise and respect Indigenous language and culture. They are easy to read. Kids and adults find them interesting.
The pictures are good and they help people to read the words because they can understand them, not like other books that kids and adults can’t always understand. These books make kids want to read because they talk about them.”

Interestingly most of the Central Arrernte people (Matthew’s people) who read this page call the echidna a ‘porcupine’ just as they do in South Africa. I wonder which word came into Australian and Aborignal English first?

Ian Malcom, honorary emeritus professor of applied linguistics at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia, and long-time Honey Ant Readers friend, gave a terrific interview about Aboriginal English on Radio National’s Lingua Franca show with Maria Zijlstra last week. Ian has long been advocating the need for recognition of Aboriginal English as a dialect of English in its own right, with recognisable and agreed forms spoken across the continent.

He explains that at the time of settlement of the Australian continent, two separate ‘Englishes’ developed, one among the settler community and the other among the Indigenous community. Among Indigenous groups, two varieties of English also emerged, the first for communicating with the settlers and the other, as a lingua franca, for communicating among Indigenous groups speaking different mother tongues. Some words were taken from the maritime community, other jargon was picked up from the settlers, most notably Irish English is more prominent in Aboriginal English than the Standard Australian form!

With time, it developed into a mother tongue for many groups, but as the Creole was influenced heavily by Australian English, it “decreolised” meaning it became more like English, but quite distinct from Australian English. Far from a “careless” or “inadequate” English, Aboriginal English is derived from pidgin and Creole origins, but is in fact a fully developed dialect which expresses the need and identity of its speakers. Professor Malcom believes that there needs to be a place in education for both dialects, that we need to teach Aboriginal speakers with sensitivity for their language in order to balance the rights of speakers of different dialects in the classroom and enhance their learning. Education must add rather than detract from what students bring to the school.

Follow the link below to listen to the full interview :

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/linguafranca/aboriginal-english/3709226