When ChatGPT was made available to the public at the end of 2022, it produced a torrent of speculation about the future of writing. You could read about the demise of high school English in The Atlantic, the end of the university essay in The New Yorker, or 'the end of writing' itself in The Spectator.
A few years on, the ability to write well seems – somewhat surprisingly – more important than ever. Strong writers can communicate with precision in an increasingly complex world, extend their learning through the cognitively demanding act of writing, and exercise what writer David Malouf calls a 'uniquely human faculty in us, the capacity to step beyond the actual into the possible.'
For this reason, we are pleased with Queenwood's recent NAPLAN data, which indicates that our students are well-equipped to write in a meaningful, purposeful manner. Highlights of the data include:
- Steady growth in Year 7 achievement in writing, with 98% of students now in the strong or exceeding band (compared to 71% of NSW).
- Steady growth in Year 9 achievement, with 94% now in the strong or exceeding band (compared to 66% of NSW).
- Considerable improvement in the Year 9 cohort, with 59% of students in the exceeding band (compared to 29% when the cohort completed NAPLAN in 2023).
The Queenwood Approach
At Queenwood, students receive writing instruction across a range of subjects, not just English. If you were to step into a PDPHE, History, Social Sciences, Science, or Design and Technology classroom — to name just a few subjects — there is every chance that you would find students learning about sentence structures, nominalisation, or the selection of appropriate verbs.
This distinctive cross-subject approach to writing instruction began in 2023, when we first partnered with the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) to develop a whole-secondary culture of writing instruction. Primarily, this has involved empowering teachers to cultivate learning environments rich in opportunities for students to grow as writers.
Our current Year 9 cohort started Year 7 when this was first initiated. Since then, we have seen improvement in all areas, with especially strong gains in the following skills:
- Generating and selecting appropriate ideas for writing
- Constructing correct, clear, and precise sentences
- Using a range of accurate and effective words to communicate meaning
In other words, these girls write with a clarity and conviction that will serve them well throughout school, at university, in the workplace, and beyond.
Of course, we are committed to ensuring that our students' intellectual horizons extend far beyond NAPLAN. Nonetheless, the data is a welcome affirmation of our approach, the expertise of our teachers, and the admirable academic character of our students. The ability to write well is now more important than ever, and it is wonderful to see Queenwood's students growing increasingly confident as writers each and every day.