The mental toll of NAPLAN

My son loves school. He is a student leader, a committed learner, and, until this week, one of the most enthusiastic students in his class. This morning, he told me he hates school. He told me he hates all the testing. Nothing changed at home. Same sleep, same food, same routines, the same extraordinary teacher. The only variable is NAPLAN.

Over the course of the testing week, headaches, fatigue, mood swings and resistance have crept in one by one. He walked into the first test chipper and excited. He is ending the testing a completely different.

This morning, immediately upon wake up, he escaped to his favourite “One-Piece” book series and couldn’t eat his breakfast. When it was time to leave, he ran into his room and cocooned himself in his doona. My husband, a state schoolteacher himself, clocked what was happening for our eldest boy. The dysregulation, he recognised, was a child whose nervous system had reached overload.

I went into my son’s room and cuddled him through his doona. I told him I loved him, that it would all be over at the end of the day. That it was hard, and he shouldn’t have to feel this way about learning, not when he loves his class, his teacher, his school so much.

He told me he can unmask with his teacher. That his teacher just “gets me mummy;” “Let’s me be myself.” But the test does not. And the teacher’s hands are bound.

What got him out of his doona cocoon was his sense of responsibility to others. I reminded him that his class had nominated him as their Student Representative because they trust him, because he is kind, a good leader, loves learning, and lives by what his school calls “the heart way,” even when it is hard. His eyes glistened and sparkled at the same time. Sadness and pride. I walked out, gave him a moment, and he came out fully dressed and ready to go. Reluctant, but willing, because of his love for his school, his teacher, his class and the values each represents to him.

I am writing this story, not just for my son, but for the many children whose parents may be witnessing the same thing this week. Packing a full week of national testing into one week is too much for primary school children. When children face relentless cognitive demands day after day, the strain shows up quickly, in their mood, their behaviour, and their willingness to walk through the school gate.

Research involving over 1,000 students in Years 3 and 5 found that NAPLAN contributes to meaningful stress and anxiety, with 94% of teachers and 87% of principals agreeing on this point. A separate study of primary-aged students found that up to one in five students experienced a physical response to testing, including poor sleep, headaches, and crying.

My son hit every single one of those markers this testing week, and he is a child who loves school. What about the children who already baseline struggle without the presence of NAPLAN?

The downstream effect on attendance is not theoretical. My son will be having a wellbeing day when this week is over. His brain and his nervous system need it. I suspect he will not be alone. I would be genuinely interested to know whether post-NAPLAN attendance data across primary schools tells the same story at scale.

The irony should not be lost on ACARA: a program designed to improve national literacy and numeracy outcomes may be actively driving the disengagement and absenteeism that undermines them.

The fix is not complicated: distribute testing across a term or a semester. Reduce the daily intensity. Give children time to recover between assessments. The national data would remain comparable. The harm would be significantly reduced. And our kids? Maybe they would still love learning and going to school just a little bit more.

I would also ask: what do families receive in return? NAPLAN results arrive months after testing. Too late to inform the current school year, too broad to guide individual learning. This program needs to deliver something parents, teachers and students can actually use, and it must stop coming at the cost of children’s love of learning.

My son is resilient. He will recover from this week. But he should not have to. And not every child will. What I know for certain is that he will carry the memory of this the stress, the resistance, the dread into Year 5, Year 7, and Year 9. Please reform the testing format ACARA. It’s ridiculous. Children’s wellbeing and their relationship with education are not acceptable collateral damage for a national dataset.