 Although we think it's important that our students understand the purpose of the test and what the test will look like, we tend to minimise that information so that it's a natural part. Preparing for NAPLIN is a natural part of classes across the curriculum, not just in English and in maths, and our message to the students is that this is a snapshot in time. So this is a one piece of assessment at one point in time and that way we take away the high stakes nature of it for students. The message we pass on to students and to parents is that if we teach a broad curriculum and that we are informed of the skills within that curriculum, then the NAPLIN assessments will look after themselves. And we just see it as a normal part of school and practice. What we're really looking for at Avnol Primary is that we get that transferability of skills. So we teach skills in rich authentic contexts and if we've been successful as teachers, those skills should be embedded in long term memory and NAPLIN allows us to check that. Another positive development at our school has been actually the broadening of our curriculum. So we've been early adopters of the Australian curriculum across its domains. So we love the rigor that it's provided. We love the diversity that it's provided. We love the engagement that it's provided for students. And we see that as the key preparation for NAPLIN. Learning for NAPLIN, as Akara says, is all about teaching to a broad curriculum. And at St Mary's North Sydney we do teach to a very broad curriculum, keeping leadership in mind and student voice very heavily involved in that. Our message then to our students is to show off themselves at their best and to ensure that it is a time where they get to show off in a very, very positive light. We do of course show our children the tests in past paper form and in sample test form to ensure that they are familiar and feel familiar when they do come to the testing days. We try to keep it very positive and again say to them that it is one tool amongst many that we use at our school. Our message to students is that whilst they are sitting the test, the test is mainly for us as a school to know where we are sitting and where we can go from there. So we pretty much tell the students to try their best, but the test is mainly for the teacher and the school to set directions. I do agree with Akara and believe that the best preparation is in the teaching and learning programs and ensuring a wide variety, relevant, explicit teaching to support our students. So that it's holistic rather than a one-off snapshot of a test. We're not fools. We want to prepare students for NAPLAN 2 to make sure they do their best. But can I say we prepare them to do their best on any tests that they do. One of the things that we try to do is to engage teachers right across every subject to say that literacy and numeracy is your responsibility within your subject area, and that's something that the NAPLAN agenda has forced us to do. When we are asking teachers to integrate literacy and numeracy across their subject area, it's really to be mindful of the kind and style of questions that are in the NAPLAN test so that when the opportunity arises, not to force the opportunity, but when the opportunity arises to integrate that material into their particular subject, that they do that in a way which is relevant and real and effective within that subject context. Well, we don't actually go on a lot about preparing for NAPLAN. We explain that NAPLAN is an opportunity to celebrate, to celebrate their achievement, to celebrate their success, to have a look at how they've grown from year three to year five. And it's really shown as a positive way. So the students are excited by NAPLAN rather than seeing it as a test and nervous about it. We really try to promote it as a celebration and another way that children can show the teachers and their parents how clever they are. Our students wouldn't know that they're preparing for NAPLAN because we don't actually focus on it as a whole school. We talk about teaching of literacy and numeracy all the time, and it's not just with a preparation for a test that occurs over a few days. While we use the data that we receive because of those tests to improve teaching practices, it's not about the test. It's more about what the test can provide for us in terms of how we are achieving at our school compared to other schools around the country and how we can explicitly and set goals to improve. And the only way that you can improve is by looking, having a benchmark to compare that improvement too. So our students wouldn't be aware that they're preparing for NAPLAN. And I don't think that our teachers feel that they are preparing students for a test. The message to students in preparing for NAPLAN is that this is what we teach most of the year and it's the skills that they should be learning. We do some preparation as far as getting the students to do a practice test. So they're a little bit more familiar with what's going to be in front of them, in particular our Year 3 students who might not have seen that test before, but they usually have one go there. We do some preparation on our genres. So we look at both the narrative and the persuasive genre to make sure that they've covered that well. And we give students a lot of confidence that we've done this. They know the things that we've been teaching. They know them well and that they just need to be able to show what they can do in those tests. Our students understand that NAPLAN is part of a whole suite of different assessments, which they do within the school context. They know it's important, as are all other assessments. But what we do with those children is we provide some preparation for them, especially our Year 3 children, so they understand the format and how to answer questions. And we also let our Year 5 children revisit those test formats. But we feel that the broader teaching is such a critical thing that we don't narrow our teaching to NAPLAN. We don't use it as our guiding light. We use it as part of our overall assessments that we use across the school. Students don't feel intimidated by NAPLAN. They generally achieve at the same level that we find that they achieve in our other assessments. And if they don't achieve in the same level as our other assessments, that sends up a warning light for us, which allows us then to go and use NAPLAN or other kinds of assessments to find out what it is that they're not achieving so well in.