You are invited to nominate your school for participation in a trial for the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). The purpose of the trial is to judge the performance of a set of draft NAPLAN online items for inclusion in future tests.

The trial will be conducted between 5 August and 16 September 2015 in all States and Territories, and will involve classes in each of Years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

Participating schools will need to offer at least one complete class of at least 20 students per year level and participating classes will be required on two days to complete the tests.

The purpose of the study is to try out an initial batch of online items to support the development of 2017 NAPLAN online tests. This study will trial numeracy, reading, spelling, grammar and punctuation in approximately 200--250 schools across Australia.

A subset of students participating in the trialling study, who are expected to complete tests using desktop PCs or laptops, will also provide the control condition for students who will be using tablets to complete NAPLAN online tests for the writing domain in the device effect study.

A further purpose of this study is to evaluate testlet construction and targeting of items to assist with further development and refinement of the tailored test design.

Expressions of interest close on 1 July 2015.

Please contact Anne De Nicolo via anne.denicolo@cesa.catholic.edu.au with any questions.

The details in the registration form following are required by ACARA and Educational Services Australia for any schools participating in the NAPLAN Online Development Trials, being conducted around Australia between 5 Aug and 16 Sep 2015.

From those schools that have expressed interest by 1 July 2015, a set of representative CESA schools will be selected, based on location, size and characteristics.