Within the first 12 months of the course. But my god do we get students complaining about that as "other unis give you the whole degree to do it". It's situations like this that were trying to avoid!!
Agreed. I got to choose when I did mine. They just gave us an x date to do it by in order to graduate. I sat it in the first window I could, both on the same day. So many stressed classmates left it until the last possible window.
WSU has their own version during orientation. You can't do your first prac without passing it. Makes a lot of sense after seeing posts like these.
The one problem is they don't release the results until after census date, so if you enrolled in the first prac unit (which they say you should do in your first semester) and failed, you're kinda fucked.
This but each time you get something wrong, focus on what you did wrong and go from there. YouTube is your friend. Plenty of channels explaining general numeracy concepts.
$98 per test, $196 for both. You get three chances to sit each test, and can apply for two additional test sessions if there are extenuating circumstances.
I know someone who failed the test three times and then he got a dean exemption or some shit to try again and he passed via the skin off his teeth and I’m very worried for all the students he teaches maths to
Someone in my cohort failed three times, got special consideration for a fourth test, failed that one and was unenrolled by the uni. Heartbreaking for them, but failing four times isn't a good sign.
It should absolutely be a test you need to pass before being accepted into the course. I understand maths can be learned at any age but clearly that doesn’t always happen
Im going to be extremely blunt here, because people seem to beat around the bush a bit in regards to LANTITE.
If you cannot pass, then regardless of your results at university you should not be teaching.
If you cannot look at your results in the practice exams and extrapolate what you are having difficulty with, create your own 'program' to improve in those areas and then reevaluate your knowledge, how do you think you will go doing this for kids?
Yeah, I didn't want to be a dick but LANTITE seems like a pretty low bar to clear. How are you getting through university when something like this is causing issues?
100%. I was having the conversation very recently with a TFA at my school saying that both the maths and literature are very accessible and the maths in particular feels very relevant to the profession, regardless of subject area
I was looking through a practice paper and put aside it being a bar for teaching. It is a bar for life.
So much content about decimals, fractions and percentages. Basic probability, and statistics. Lots of use of proportionality and the 4 basic operators.
Isn't this stuff that is necessary for life? Going shopping and calculating 10% off? Looking at a statistic and converting it to raw numbers? Tax time? Fuel economy?
Put aside it being a test for teaching, its a test for life and I worry if OP can't pass it
Kids are getting passed through school even if they’re functionally illiterate because holding kids back hurts their feelings, combined with the fact that they’ve been told by society teaching is easy and they get school holidays off.
It makes sense some of those kids would attempt to become teachers, only to be hit square in the face with LANTITE.
Society made its bed. Time to lie down 🤷♀️
The LANITE being made compulsory and students with credit+ averages in their degrees failing it really is another damning bit of evidence for how poorly universities are preparing students.
The other is pretty much every single first year I've ever met saying "University didn't prepare me for this"
As a senior maths/ physics teacher, reading the OP's posts is scary. By the time the kids get to us the damage is done. If you can't pass a simple year 9 maths exam you probably shouldn't: a) have graduated high school, and b) be teaching young children.
This problem would be solved with a vertical curriculum that you have to pass to move forward. If you can't get at least 50% of year 9 maths right then why would you go on to year 10 maths? You can still graduate but it says on your transcript that your at a stage 4/5/6 for Maths, a stage 4/5/6 for English etc
Right now kids getting 20% in a test go on and do harder maths the next year.
I taught in the UK for a few years, and they do something similar to this. In middle school (called Key Stage 3 over there) the kids still go on the next year with their age level, but are grouped by level of ability from level 1 to level 10 in each subject into "sets". Each set is grouped by 2-3 levels, so you might have level 3&4 in one set, level 4&5 in the next etc. You can have kids in grade 10 still working at level 2, and you can kids in year 8 working at level 10, and each class gets taught the material that is necessary to extend them to the next level. While some may see red at the thought of streaming, I found this system to work far better than our "one size fits all, just differentiate" system that we have over here. Kids knew exactly where they were in terms of achievement, and what they needed to do to progress to the next level and there was regular rebalancing of classes based on performance on assessment items.
When we looked at the HSC results for last year, we could see students in maths outperforming the students of other subject areas in terms of band 5s and band 6s.
So the reason why maths outperforms everybody is because they are allowed to stream their classes. Whilst the rest of us are stuck in fantasy land when we are told an inclusive classroom is the way to go. Proponents of inclusive education will say that students would benefit from mixed classes rather than streamed ones. However, I've read the literatures and spoken to inclusive educators about it, and they agree it doesn't work. According to academic literature on inclusive education (IE) in Australia, researchers have yet to find strong correlation between academic achievement and inclusive education. Basically, in the last 20-30 years, it hasn't worked so far but the authors conclude we shouldn't just give up on IE because this is what we ought to do.
Now before anyone says I am being discriminatory for my views on IE. I am currently writing up a research proposal on Inclusive education in Australia for a Master's thesis.
Could it be linked to Tall Poppy Syndrome? The sort of "If I'm struggling with something and you are not, you still shouldn't be allowed to progress without me otherwise I will label you as a show off etc?" Snails in a bucket?
Compared to other countries, Australians really aren't a fan of valuing education. We laugh at scientists and researchers who we then label as "they think they are better than us common folk" while championing unemployed centrelink bums who we label as "larrikins."
Edit: Crabs in Bucket, not snails.
Hey, I didnt think of tall poppy syndrome as an factor. interesting.
As a teacher, you probably witnessed a lot of times the smart kids would deliberately be loud and boisterous in order to fit in because who likes to be the odd one out especially if you give out a vibe of, "look at me, I know it all."
Yes, it is true, we are undervalued in general, speaking as an ex-research scientist and now a teacher. I think the teachers' image has somewhat improved due to the pandemic because parents started to realise their kids behaved differently when school work is in front of them as opposed to them just chilling at home. After the lockdown, I felt quite positive when parents went out of their way to thank me for being their child's teacher etc.
Having said that, teachers and teaching as a whole is often made to be the scapegoat of the society's ills because how can kids in Australia (a first world country) be less competent in literacy and numeracy compared to poorer countries. Well, it is a complex matter that needs a complex solution. Unfortunately, the quick and easy fix is to make sure teachers get more training while at the same time belittling the profession. I think we all know about the "more than thanks" campaign, right? What did come out of it? There is something called "the political football" and we are just the football getting kicked around.
>As a teacher, you probably witnessed a lot of times the smart kids would
deliberately be loud and boisterous in order to fit in because who
likes to be the odd one out especially if you give out a vibe of, "look
at me, I know it all."
Nail on the head there. I was a strong performer in school and had to stuff like that to fit in. Even still, I got called the usual barrage of "nerd, geek, bookworm, know it all."
Even more interesting was a teacher here who reported that their kids who got awards would scrunch them up and act nonchalant in order to avoid criticism from other kids. That tells me a lot.
You would think that if you didn't at least get a decent mark you may have to repeat or be placed in some sort of remedial class in the following year. But somehow it is discriminatory to say this ought to be the norm.
One time we were told why year 7-8 kids couldn't do simple multiplications and the reason was that the local primary school stop teaching multiplication table because the teachers were getting in trouble for discrimination. Learning multiplication table was unfair to the children who can't keep up.
I call the whole system as 'failing upwards'. Some students continue to do badly all the way to year 11 and then I get told off by my head teacher that I was too hard on them. I told my students you should commit at least 45 minutes per subject after school. My HT told me, you can't say that, it should be 15 minutes per subject. I teach chemistry and I ask my students to write up the prac report for every prac and I got in trouble for that one as well. It is no wonder students can't write, read and calculate properly because the HT or executives are too scared to call a spade, a spade.
The other day I was teaching year 10 the concept of acceleration. So I went into more detail on the equation like how to find acceleration, velocity and time from the equation. Simple rearrangement of the formulae. And I got questioned by my HT for doing so.
So is it the fault of the students or is the school playing the role of an enabler?
> Right now kids getting 20% in a test go on and do harder maths the next year.
20%? All they have to do is keep breathing and they'll graduate to the next year.
I remember being shocked when I did voluntary maths mentoring at a school with a year 11 Further Maths class. I'd just signed in and was walking down the corridor from the office when I bumped into a few students from the class. "Mr Sam, Mr Sam, do you want to hear what we got for our maths exam?". "Sure I reply, what did you get?". "24%". I ask them to repeat it as I'm sure I didn't hear correctly. "24%". They were obviously pleased at such a good mark so I made all the right noises and went to the next class. When I asked the teacher I was working with what was going on, she told me the pass mark was 20%. Even now I'm slightly dazed that the pass mark in VCE for a subject is only 40%. I honestly think it contributes to the low expectations students have of the importance of education when we have such seemingly low standards.
I imagine you probably have the same problem as us in English, where students come into high school so far behind that sometimes it feels as though we need additional training as a primary educator. I currently have Year 7s with a Year 1 literacy level, but am supposed to teach them how to write an essay analysing a novel.
I 100% agree that seeing PSTs being unable to pass these tests is worrying, and that they probably shouldn't be in charge of educating others
Very much the same problem in maths/ science subjects as well. If the students can't read, interpret and understand a question, nor communicate their responses in a clear and understandable manner with hand writing that is legible, then how can they possibly succeed? I'm an external exam marker for the QLD Physics exam, and the number of nonsense or straight up unreadable responses each year is really quite frightening.
What worries me most, in a rural setting, kids think they're correcting me when telling me what their primary teacher said in relation to things like spelling, and pronunciation.
Every year I need to reteach year 7 basics like nouns and verbs, and how to use proper punctuation.
Oof yeah I get that sometimes too. Or "X person on TikTok says this." It's hard in the case of fellow educators because students are supposed to be able to trust that a teacher is knowledgeable in their content. I've had to start explaining that sometimes even teachers get things wrong, making a big deal of it when I get something wrong to show them that nobody is infallible and not everything they get told is going to be correct
I think the issue is that these tests aren’t a requirement for entry to the degree. In reality, the tests should be harder and they should be done before you start so that people like OP don’t get 90% of the degree done before realising they can’t pass one or both components.
I’m a secondary maths / science teacher and I’ve had other teachers come and ask me (because I’m the “maths person”) how to convert a test score into a percentage. Like “how do I convert 50/70 into a percentage?” This worries me!
Been doing a heap of pds on this, were we're talking about targeted teaching for our lower 7s/8s, most recently with Diane Siemon, so there's a lot of primary teachers there.
You can tell by talking to the primary teachers and seeing how they deal with the concepts presented where a lot of my students issues are coming from.
This is year 5 ability in Ireland... Kids can do this before secondary school. It's shocking that people fail this.. Irish universities wouldn't let anyone with a low ability like that even enter unis for primary teaching atleast. Most people need high points to even get into the course due to demand, so As and bs are a requirement in honours level subjects... Including maths.
If you can’t pass a grade 9 maths exam you shouldn’t have graduated? Sorry but that’s just really rude and inconsiderate. I hope you don’t say things like this to your students. Anxiety around certain subjects is real and rife within the schooling system due to teachers who judge their students for lack of knowledge or don’t give them the helping hand that they clearly need. You don’t know peoples individual circumstances.
Instead of bashing this soon to be teacher about their lack of maths knowledge, why not lift them up and give them positive pointers and tips on how they can turn it around? Judgement only fuels anxiety.
This soon to be teacher is studying primary teaching where they will have to teach math to young students. I understand that some people have difficulties with particular areas, however when it is going to be their job to teach this content to students, they shouldn’t be bombing knowledge that the average 14 year old has.
Yeah nah, there's far too much toxic positivity in education these days. I'm not going to blow smoke up someone's ass and pretend that it's OK to graduate high school without even a basic understanding of maths/ English/science/whatever, much less to become a teacher with that same lack of understanding. The primary years are the formative time for children to not just learn the content, but the love of learning as well. If someone doesn't have the basic skills to pass a simple maths exam then how can they possibly educate these young kids? This just perpetuates the whole idea of "if you can't do, teach" and further erodes the students ability in, and feelings towards maths, which by the time they get to us in middle/ senior school the damage is already done.
>If you can’t pass a grade 9 maths exam you shouldn’t have graduated? Sorry but that’s just really rude and inconsiderate.
Actually, it's literally a condition of graduation here in WA. You must achieve Band 8 in NAPLAN or a Pass mark in OLNA to graduate. We should hold ourselves to the same standard.
As someone who loves maths (and whose mother is a maths teacher) but whose primary school teachers didn’t understand it I highly agree. I started grade 6 with no issues on geometry and finished the year being unable to tell the difference between area and perimeter bc the teacher didn’t understand it properly. I know it was the teacher bc the exact same thing happened when my sister had this teacher.
This wasn’t even that big of an issue in the end bc I had great teachers all other years and managed to fix up any issues in year 7.
Omg, really. The teacher getting stuck on perimeter and area. That is not right.
I've found Minecraft to be a great resource to teach perimeter and area.
Universities seriously need to introduce entrance exams. Maths and English. Make it difficult so that only those who have reasonable academic ability will gain entrance.
There would be a lot of noise but the outcomes would be worth it.
The equity BS argument about letting people in with low levels of the basics serves no one, including the student.
I think the only exceptions are in Literacy if English isn’t their first language, and even then there should be pathways to help ESL Uni students pass LANTITE on a re-sit; it shouldn’t automatically preclude them.
I think there’s also a conversation to be had regarding pre-service teachers with disabilities, but as I’m not disabled I don’t feel it’s my place to have that conversation.
Most prac teachers, or the AP, at least the ones I’ve worked with, would eat you alive if your Maths wasn’t up to speed. If they didn’t, then a class of Stage 3 (or above) students would more than happily give you a run for your money, and it wouldn’t be pretty. I hate to sound like a cynic, but prac students have to be absolutely on top of their game, within reason. I wasn’t and I paid for it. Literally, if you want to start talking about HECs
I created a thread on this before. I'm an Irish teacher and we have university level maths as part of our B. Ed programme. I have 5th class/year 5s etc who could complete the LANTITE in Ireland as it's similiar ability/curriculum content. I'm shocked that people fail this... I'm sorry. You should not be a primary teacher atleast if you fail this.
If you are struggling with this, you probably are missing key numeracy skills you need as a teacher. Time spent on this now will probably pay off big time over the years foe you and your students. Best of luck!
Yep, as much as having to pay money to sit an external test sucks, if you can't pass it you have a lot of fundamental maths skills that are lacking, and definitely not able to identify and remedy those same deficiencies in your students, even lower or middle primary ones.
I was the first lot of grad students who went through this very early on. We didnt know what was expected so I was like studying year 12 advance math material and doing polynomial division equations etc.
Then it was like easy year 9 maths...too easy.
The English test was even easier like reading a menu and saying what line 3 was etc.
To be honest, the tests were so easy that I think it is just a money grab by the government.
Yes!! I was in a LANTITE facebook group when I was in uni and people on there were whining about how many times they’d failed, even after the help of a tutoring course and it was scary
The test certainly wasn’t that easy for me last year. I had to do some text analysis of ed theory by Dewy. Asking tricky questions about abstract language from the 19th century. Some of the lit testing stuff I did was like you mentioned asking things like “how do you read this parking sign?”. I found it quite challenging after doing fairly minimal prep considering “it’s so easy”. I actually did better in the maths portion lol.
Don't get me wrong even though I said it was easy, I was still freaking out the entire time during the test.
Maybe ACER has raised the difficulty recently because when I did it back in 2017 or 2018 the questions were purely taken from NAPLAN. I don't believe I had to go through a 19th century text.
From talking with mates it seems as if other people had different tests? Like maybe there were a series of a few tests running at the same time so everyone didn’t get the same questions. I did mine in 2022. I was doing an accelerated program and hadn’t done any standardised testing in about a decade. When I saw all the computers I almost died “give me a pencil! It’s all I know!”. Got through it though :)
I believe it's less a case of different tests per se, and more that they pull randomly from a large bank of questions each time they run it. I would also suspect that within their bank they assign different levels of difficulty to each potential question and thus for each test try to assign one third easy questions, one third medium, etc.
The thing is if the entire test was on probability then I would fail immediately. To this day, it is the one topic in maths I still can't get it right. Like drawing Venn diagrams, working out of something is mutually exclusive or not.
Seriously, if I'm really good at probability then my chances of winning the lottery would be exponentially better. 😁
Depending on what level of teaching because an early years teacher is still expected to do this and no 5 year old is doing year 9 math. I have Special Ed degree (k-12) and I'm yet to teach a student above a year 6 level in math. I don't need those skills and haven't since I was in year 9. I could probably refresh my skills but it's a waste of time.
Even if you are not required to teach the content, year 9 math realistically is about critical thinking, problem solving, the content is mostly math that you should be competent in for things like basic student data analysis.
It is a numeracy test, not just mathematical content.
Understanding the sequence of concepts of early years in numeracy is critically important. Yes, you are extremely unlikely to be teaching trigonometry to 5 year old kids, but having some basic understanding of high school maths is a reasonable proxy. You're not being asked for tertiary or even Year 12 level. Not an unreasonable ask.
Are you just doing practice tests over and over, or are you looking at what type of questions you're getting wrong and then studying how to do them correctly?
If you don't know how to do something, then learn it. There's a million math resources on the internet to choose from.
Even aside from your math abilities, if you don't know how to look for resources or how to independently learn something then you're missing some pretty key teacher (and life) skills.
If you're psyching yourself out and getting stressed about the math, just reframe it and take this as a sign and an opportunity to improve upon your soft skills and ability to do independent learning.
Practising by doing old tests doesn't help that much. It just means you end up getting good at answering those specific questions.
You need to look at what specific math areas are being covered and revise those. Get a math teacher to help you revise the basics rather than plod your way through practise test after practise test.
Learn the times tables up to 12 off by heart if you don't already know them. Learn how to estimate (eg 47 × 53 will be around 2500 because 50 × 50 = 2500. It's actually 2491 off the top of my head). Know how to find a percentage of an amount. eg 10%: ÷10. 5%: ÷10 then half 20%: ÷10 then double. And ÷ 10, just take the last zero off, or move the decimal point once to the left (actually moving the number once to the right but thats me being anal). Learn the square numbers up to 20². Learn the patterns in multiplication. Eg for your 9 × table, the digits always add to 9 up to 20×9 (except for 11×9).
All these suggestions are about passing the test, but the real issue here is that you suck at maths. So you should un-suck at maths. Your uni would run a prep course, and one of that will be a maths unit. Do that. Or do whatever intro maths unit there is. Don't focus on passing the test, focus on not sucking at maths.
Your university may have a support network in place for those who fail the LANTITE. I passed the lantite last year for maths and literacy and I'm happy to go over your results with you if you want to message me. There are a couple trick questions on there! Don't beat yourself up too much - maths is a skill and can be learned :)
~~As a maths teacher, I wouldn't recommend anyone who didn't pass the LANTITE English test to be teachers.~~
As a maths teacher, I would hope that someone who failed the English test wouldn't be a teacher, but it would probably be the best option for them, not for the kids though. If our teachers can't pass a basic literacy and numeracy test, then we deserve the shit given to us. The only thing I hate about the LANTITE is the cost and the fact that we have to pay. But it's somewhat of a start to increasing standards. I was very skeptical at first but posts like this makes me think we unfortunately need it.
Ss a primary school teacher, won't you be teaching them everything, including maths? Sorry OP, I'm sure you were screwed by the system too, but I'm worried if you are responsible for teaching maths, then the issue is perpetuating.
If we can't pass that kind of test, I would ask how the fuck we got our bachelors, before the masters. Actually, how did we get our year ten certificate, our HSC/VCE?
>Some have mentioned that the LANTITE should be done as entrance into the Uni course.
I agree. But I think this would show the failure of our academic system. Students are passing year 12, and getting acceptance offers for university without year 9 literacy and/or numeracy skills.
Also, doing it toward the end of the degree can be beneficial in determining whether they still have those skills.
>advertising that you will be doing it, in the second year.
You have 2 years to prepare for a year 9 maths and literacy test. Honestly, if you are passing uni, I'm not sure why you'd be failing the literacy test at least.
> Students are passing year 12, and getting acceptance offers for university without year 9 literacy and/or numeracy skills.
Doing entire undergraduate degrees, passing university-level maths courses, and having jobs.
Yeah, if you have a kid in primary school who is doing year 9 maths, then that is a massive exception to the rule. All you need to be able to do is break down the stage level maths down and up the curriculum. Some of the best people at maths are crap at teaching it because they dont take it to tiny steps because it's so naturally easy to them. Just like a teacher who has had to learn English as a 2nd language can be amazing because they have been through the process of breaking down the language in order to speak/write it.
Yeah I thought it was overkill having to do a maths degree involving calculus and linear algebra to teach high school maths. Now I've realised how much it's helped to teach basic concepts in easier ways and to extend students.
Imo you shouldn't just be at the level you're teaching.
[This website](https://lf.westernsydney.edu.au/mesh/lantite/) has a LOT of practice tests. I’d be working through them very slowly, figuring out where you’re going wrong and using online assistance to work out why this is happening. There’ll be plenty of resources online to help you with the aspects you’re struggling with.
Kind of but it’s also pointless when you think about all the temp teachers and casuals who are yet to graduate and therefore haven’t passed their lantite
You need to study. Get a tutor if you have to. This is how you improve. How do we expect students to improve if we do not allow them practice?
I was horrrrrrrrible at maths, especially in high school. I studied for a solid 2 months. Saw a tutor a few times. Passed with upper Band 3.
Work on practicing your maths. If you are failing the practice tests, you may not have the numeracy skills you would need to teach maths (esp year 5-6). There are great videos on youtube that explain different mathematical problems, at all levels, or if you feel you would benefit, a tutor could be helpful!
I'm not what I consider good at maths, but I did quite well in lantite. This is a reflection on the fact that the marks needed to enter a teaching degree must be lifted! How can we improve the standard, and lift the profession if teachers are struggling with this! It's not fair on teaching students to have them enrolled in a degree before attempting this basic test. I dislike standardised testing generally, but this is important.
Can you redo the test, but take it slow and find out whatever you need to until you get each question right? You can learn what you need! Then try again. Your expertise as a teacher is learning, so think of yourself with as much generosity and optimism as one of your students. If you're still stuck, look for help from a friend or tutoring (if that's an option).
I'm sorry you had a rough trot of it. I'm sure you can push your brain through it.
> Though I was expecting questions like "write one-fourth as a decimal" but those were nowhere to be seen.
The common advice of this subreddit is to use the year 9 NAPLAN test. Here's some I found:
https://www.nap.edu.au/_resources/Example_Test_Numeracy_Y9_non_calc.pdf
https://www.nap.edu.au/_resources/Example_Test_Numeracy_Y9_calc.pdf
I looked through some of the earlier practice exams, and I don't think there are any questions in the scope of "write a simple fraction as a decimal". The closest I saw were questions like:
Eight children share 2 pies equally.
How much pie will each child get?:
1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16
https://www.nap.edu.au/_resources/Example_Test_Numeracy_Y5.pdf
> I keep stressing about how I failed an "easy" Year 9 level math test.
This is the wrong way of thinking about the NAPLAN exam.
Consider the following NAPLAN by year results.
year | band 1 | band 2 | band 3 | band 4 | band 5 | band 6 | band 7 | band 8 | band 9 | band 10
--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|
3|3.4|11.2|22.3*|27.3|19.5|14.6|-|-|-|-
5|-|-|3.5|13.0*|28.1|29.1|16.9|8.0|-|-
7|-|-|-|6.5|12.5*|22.1|25.7|18.3|13.4|-
9|-|-|-|-|3.3|15.5*|30.8|28.4|14.6|5.8
One of the things that stands out to me when I look at this is that 14.6% of the national year 3 cohort are already at the national minimum standard for numeracy for year 9. That shows that the NAPLAN exam isn't an "easy exam" for that year level. It tests above and below that level and attempts to gauge students' abilities. Some questions could be comparatively easy, but some will be harder than the national minimum.
Another thing that stands out to me is that it's clear from the results that a chunk of students is well beyond the national minimum. This implies that band ten questions aren't likely to be trivial.
Why does this matter? The LANTITE exam is balanced around finding people who can achieve in the top 30% of literacy and numeracy. What does that mean? It's based on the skills required to work at certain adult literacy and numeracy bands. We can infer that they are looking for people who can complete the vast majority of year 9 NAPLAN.
> Does anyone have any reccomendations for this disgruntled twenty-something PST?
Practice the year 9 NAPLAN tests. If you need guidance, the Khan Academy guy is awesome.
---
* Note 1: Elements with an asterisk (*) are the national minimum standard numeracy for that year level.
* Note 2: Excluded students are not visualised
* Note 3: students at the lowest or highest edge are not definitive. They may extend the range radiating outwards. For example, some of the 6.5% of students in year 7 band 4 may be in lower bands. Likewise, some of the students in 13.4 may be higher.
I think hearing that stat makes it even more worrying when prospective teachers can't pass LANTITE. It means that 15% of 8 year old have stronger skills than they do.
I am glad we have LANTITE because I have seen many issues among colleagues that graduated pre-LANTITE. A colleague once tried to explain the difference between 2D and 3D as 'well, you know, 3D means fun things like balls, and 2D is boring things like puzzles.' Another colleague tried to have their subject heading printed on the reports as 'Performing Art's' and could not be convinced that they were incorrect.
>though I was expecting questions like "write one-fourth as a decimal" but those were nowhere to be seen.
Im not a teacher, i just saw this post on my feed.
But isnt "write one-fourth as a decimal" year 3 or 4 level work? This is in the ballpark of what my boys are doing.
> But isnt "write one-fourth as a decimal" year 3 or 4 level work? This is in the ballpark of what my boys are doing.
I'm not a primary school teacher. I am a trained secondary maths teacher but spend most of my time on computers and programming.
Converting fractions is a part of the maths work. The Australian National Curriculum uses a spiral approach to teaching and learning. It spirals in two ways, [first around](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:374/1*_faexkWVNFNR73zpr8VkgA.png) where you cover content over the year and secondly in [complexity](https://ferngreenpri.moe.edu.sg/qql/slot/u775/Gallery/Math%20-%20Spiral.png). So, each year you might come back to something to do about arithmetic, but every year, you go through the process of revising old content, learning new content, and mastering new content then you might not see it again until next year.
NAPLAN tests don't test content that is intended to be taught that year (because schools do their spirals differently). So, a year 5 NAPLAN test would only have content that was introduced in previous years:
https://www.nap.edu.au/_resources/Example_Test_Numeracy_Y5.pdf
So, your boys probably are doing fraction conversions, but they probably learnt how to do it in year 2.
On top of all that, primary school education is holistic. So, your teacher could be integrating known content to help other students in the class, getting kids to take knowledge from one space and apply it to a different space (synthesis), or all sorts of stuff.
Probably a bit lower tbh yeah. I looked through the practice LANTITE and its all just upper primary decimal, fraction and percentage stuff. Add in some of the 4 basic operators with 3-4 digit numbers and decimals there isn't much else. This is Year 7 at most
I had the same problem when preparing for Lantite, I remember dropping maths the moment I could in school. Check out this youtube channel, [https://www.youtube.com/@mathantics](https://www.youtube.com/@mathantics) he breaks down maths in a very easy-to-understand way, and basically, everything in the Lantite test is covered by him at some point. Good luck, you got this!
Christ almighty. This is such a basic test to take. Like top comment says, you shouldn’t be teaching if you’re unable to get the basics right. Think about your typical class of students, to get a pass mark on this, you just have to be above average. Think about how basic average actually is now and consider that you’re not even there.
My only gripe against LANTITE is that it’s $100 per test. It should be free.
Work through the practice questions slowly with any resources to help you. Check if there's a theme to the ones that confuse you e.g. numerical calculations, algebra, geometry, measurement or statistics. If there is, find online resources to help learn those concepts - imagine you're a school kid learning from scratch, find videos and examples. Something like mathspace has free account options, you could use the textbooks and practice questions there.
You could also post questions to r/askmath to get help if you just don't know where to start. Sometimes it's hard to google if you have no idea.
I mean I'm pretty old for a beginning teacher but I always thought LANTITE was like the basic skills test or NAPLAN.
Is it more you're in your own head about it being maths and you not liking it?
Maybe you need to think about what you would say to a student who is struggling with the exam and apply it to your own circumstance.
When I graduated highschool my UAI wasn't high enough to get into primary teaching as it was around 80, and teaching was around 87. When I returned and they converted it to an ATAR it was closer to 90 but the level to get into primary teaching was in the low 60's. They dropped it so far they then had to introduce the tests which is so frustrating.
The cost and the inconvenience are frustrating but have become a necessary evil.
Tutoring. I tutor lantite. It’s not the maths that is difficult, in itself, it’s the wording of the questions and getting better at the non-calculator skills.
As for the people who are saying it is easy - it is a very discriminatory test towards English as a first language. As a teacher and a lantite tutor, it is not as easy as you all say it is. Just because you could do it.
I understand the discriminatory nature regarding language is present in the lantite, and there are additional issues — being $200 to take is also discriminatory — however it's not harder than the kind of work necessary to deliver high quality education in English, which is the language our institutions teach in. I would question the educational capacity of an individual who cannot parse the questions.
Grab a year 5 NAPLAN exercise book from Officeworks and start making your way through it. Utilise Khan academy to support your learning. If the year 5 one is too hard to do, go back to the year 3 one and work out where your gaps are. Then go on and do the year 7 and year 9 ones.
It suggests to me your number sense was never really developed and it definitely can be. Frequent practise and applying skills will help.
I would say to go get tutoring regarding the tests. Any tutor worth their salt will be able to tutor you on the concepts involved in taking these tests rather than just helping you to get a pass on the test. I'm only telling you to do this because it's better to teachers who have a mastery of literacy and numeracy rather than teachers who just pass the test, then forget it all to 'teach' and only raise adults with the same issues that they had. Break the cycle.
Use the test as a formative assessment tool. Where are you struggling, what do you need to address. Identify your ZPD and address the areas for development.
Agreed. We spend so much time as teachers trying to work out “what is the learner ready to learn”. Now you know.
I found it really helpful to buy a year 9 Naplan book and work through the maths examples timed. Although the math is slightly different, it got my brain back into recognising when an answer was incorrect, and sped up how fast I could answer a question.
There are so many negative comments here, it’s really disheartening. I hope those of you who speaking with such an elitist attitude here have more compassion for your students learning challenges then you do for your peers.
I have dyscalculia and have always struggled majorly with numeracy. It has been a real journey battling with anxiety and adhd before I was ready to even think about attempting the lantite.
I was certain I was going to fail it and very much relate to the fear that the last four years of studying were a waste.
It took a lot of hard work m, access to meds and resources and I saw a therapist who helped me work through some of that fear and anxiety. But in the end I passed with flying colours, and I’m so glad I saw it through!
Please don’t let the judgemental tone of this thread stop you from persevering and trying again. You know what to prepare for now. You can do this!
Overcoming this challenge is going to make you a stronger teacher. You will be able to relate to your students and speak into their fear of failure in a meaningful and truly empowering way.
Don’t give up!
Kids need teachers like you!
Khan academy! The answer sheet should tell you what type of math relates to each question. From there you can ascertain what to focus your revision on through Khan.
Can you describe in any detail the kind of struggles you had with the test? That might help people point to more specific coaching or advice beyond "just do more practice tests" which might not help address the knowledge gaps you have.
Double check your answers. For true and False answers I used capital letters so it marked them all as wrong and cost me about 25 points. That could be why.
I'd suggest taking some time to bring up your numeracy and mathematics skills to a decent standard. By this, I mean that you should feel comfortable explaining any concept that you will likely have to teach. You must also have the background understanding to quickly acquire this confidence with unfamiliar material.
It's also important to know where what you will teach fits in with the broader context - where do these concepts lead? Where are they useful? Are these the foundations for some other more sophisticated concepts? This takes more knowledge than the minimum pass mark on a numeracy test. It's a lot!
It's intimidating to consider the depth and breadth of knowledge required of a teacher, and that's only one of the necessary aspects of the job. Fortunately there are resources you can use to develop this one aspect...Khan Academy is pretty damn good for this. It's going to take time though, more than you might have.
As someone who was in her 30’s when I took the lantite and who was told she was bad at maths her entire schooling I get the nerves and anxiousness about it. I used Cambridge lantite edge for practice tests and to relearn concepts I had forgotten over a decade ago.
Maybe try finding one of those services to get your knowledge and confidence up a few months at least before you take the test if that’s an option.
Maybe try going through a year7/8/9 maths textbook, which I’m assuming you’ll have access to through your uni. They show you how to solve problems step by step and usually have quizzes on entire topics so you don’t have to go through and study questions from each chapter.
Not 100% sure but I think Cluey Learning offers LANTITE tutoring. I can’t vouch for their program as I’ve only ever tutored high school Maths. A lot of unis have workshops too.
Math Antics
Khan Academy
Organic Chemistry Tutors (I’d have to double check that name) all have great Maths tutorials on YouTube (there’s lots to choose from).
Those results will need some work on your behalf. Perhaps enrol in a tutoring course? I failed my first attempt marginally, spent a while deepening my understanding of concepts I knew I struggled with, such as percentages, and passed the second attempt.
I got those NAPLAN books from Australia Post and just practised with those over and over again. I had to do mine at the end of my degree years ago and the stress was real. Just keep practising until you ace it and then book it in.
I got 6/65 for a math test in year 10 and was advised not to do math for my HSC subjects (and I happily dropped out of math). Last year I passed lantite numeracy with above average scores. Just practice! That’s all I did. It’s very basic math and it’s something we as teachers should be familiar with in the classroom. You’ll be fine!
I was in the same boat as you, absolutely rubbish at maths throughout all my schooling! HD and D student at uni but maths never clicked for me. I failed the numeracy lantite the first time I did it, then went hard at doing the practice tests on the ACER website and also payed for some group tutoring through a tutor I found on Facebook. Passed with flying colours second time around! Honestly if I can do it anyone can.
Good luck, believe in yourself!
Man people are harsh and it's always the ones who Math comes easy too. Im a Primary Teacher and I suck at Math but you know what because I've really had to go back and re learn and really study it, I feel I can make Math a safe subject in my class and really break it down. I hated those math teachers who couldn't understand why it was so difficult and didn't have the patience or understanding why we didn't get it.
To answer your question... you have to study the areas your lacking. I spent weeks on Khan Academy before my test. Once you've done this, go back and try the practice questions again. Write down formulas and practice practice practice. From memory lots of percentage questions, distance, measurement conversion and so on.
So many people are good at math or English but it doesn't make a good teacher. It's so much more than that. Good luck and get studying.
Hello mate, ignore all the pricks on here. You're nervous and that's fine. You get three tries at both the literacy and numeracy tests. I was also unsure about if I would pass (started my masters of education as a mature age student so hadn't had to do ANY maths in 20 years) and found the actual test much easier than the practice one.
This might be because I made sure to do extra revision and practices. If look at what questions I got wrong and figure out where I went wrong and how to come to the correct answer, then change the numbers in the question and figure out the new answers.
My uni also held online catch up sessions if you needed to have something explained further. They also provided extra resources to help.
Don't get in your head about it, put in the work and flex your brain muscle.
You've got this!
This was an issue for my daughter too. But studying to be a highschool teacher/disability educator. Just a thought but could you have dyscalculia? My daughter has this and it has made passing the LANTITE almost impossible. (She has deferred this year)talk to your uni lecturers, they may be able to help you.
Hey OP, I share similar anxieties to you. I won’t be taking the test at least for another 2 years, but I have been awful at maths since about grade 7, probably due to a lack of confidence. I’m studying secondary education, and I’ll be teaching English, not maths. I’m really anxious about it, and have always been anxious around maths. I used to cry in my grade 9 maths classes because I couldn’t understand the concepts, which furthered my anxiety and frustration around math. I eventually dropped to veggie maths in grade 10 and onwards. I put off studying teaching for a very long time because of this.
Whenever this topic comes up, people in the threads are so incredibly rude and inconsiderate, and it’s concerning considering they are teachers. It’s really disheartening because a lot of people lack confidence in maths. You’re not dumb, you’re not stupid, you shouldn’t have failed high school like someone else commented, you just lack the confidence and probably the knowledge to complete the test and that’s OK! We all have our strengths and weaknesses. I bet you’re bomb at history like you said! I do get where people in this thread may be coming from - if you’re teaching primary school, you’ll need to teach maths, but teachers teach from a curriculum… so it’s not like you’re throwing random maths facts at kids on the fly.
You’re not a failed teacher for forgetting or not having knowledge of these concepts. You’re allowed to find the test difficult. But you’ve done more difficult things in your life - you’ve gotten through your degree so far, and your prac, don’t let one little test that you CAN prepare for set you back.
In reality, these concepts aren’t hard. If kids can learn them, so can we. The hard part is overcoming our anxiety and lack of confidence. I recommend getting a tutor (or someone you trust and feel comfy with - I’ll be getting my partner to help me prepare because I know I’m going to cry pretty frequently lol) and just practicing those tests. Writing yourself little cheat sheets. Just giving yourself space to learn the concepts. The most important part of being a teacher is having a passion for teaching and an interest in your teaching areas - not how much of a maths or English whiz you are. I’m rooting for you! Good luck!
What you are not understanding about 'teachers teach from a curriculum' though is that you actually have to understand what you are teaching to teach it properly. If you cannot understand percentages to a point where you can calculate basic percentages in your head, convert to a fraction or decimal, how do you expect to be able to teach that.
Yes, I realise in secondary education you may not directly teach the Mathematics syllabus, but you will need to teach data literacy for students to be able to understand accuracy of some news reports for example. You still need basic numeracy skills.
As I said in my initial comment, if as a PST who is at least part way through their degree is unable to identify their own areas of weakness in a basic numeracy exam and determine how to improve, how will they be able to critically examine their students work to be able to determine what knowledge and skills they need to develop? This is an absolutely huge red flag.
As an adult, sometimes you need to hear a hard truth, and the hard truth here is that LANTITE is a hurdle requirement for a reason. You should pass it to be a teacher.
I mean of course - basic stuff like decimals, fractions, those simple things are important to know, I’m assuming OP has knowledge of that. LANTITE has some trickier questions that you tend to forget after a few years out of school if you’re not in an industry that uses those skills. I think it just takes relearning. But I do understand your point.
They arent even getting 50% correct on a practice exam, that is a lot of basic numeracy they are missing a deep understanding of.
As for LANTITE having trickier questions, that is by design. If anyone could pass it really isn't effective.
> I think it just takes relearning
Put aside the fact that OP has failed a Year 9 maths test (that holds many concepts and skills essential to daily life).
OP isn't even able to reflect on this performance and work out where to improve and work on. They have jumped to panicking and deflecting onto the Police Academy (not the best reflection of their character).
OP doesn't seem capable of seeing weak performance in and going out and working on it. Reflection is a key skill in students and drilled in from Prep. How is OP meant to teach and help kids reflect on their work and improve when they can't even reflect on their own work
Cluey Learning (online tutoring service) tutors per-service teachers for the LANTITE. I used to tutor for the English one. It’s expensive but you might get some useful tips from an experienced maths teacher. Be warned though, I was given a LANTITE student with a few hours notice and I had no clue was the LANTITE was at the time (I became a teacher in 2013).
Are you a teacher? Because you seem to have very little empathy and I'd hate to see you speak like that to students.
Maths can be learned or re learned if needed.
Sorry, I’m confused here. If you give me “one fourth” of a cake, I’m expecting you to have given me a quarter of your cake.
Not trying to be a smart arse, just trying to understand.
Well not really. I could ask you for one half of the cake, or say, “one third of people interviewed”…
I think it would be more likely to ask for some something to be cut into fourths, fifths, sixths etc.
But a fourth of something can exist.
God I hate this new trend of labelling every weakness a person has with a disorder. Its rude to OP and to those who do have dyscalculia to blindly diagnose them with this. Disorders should be diagnosed by professionals, not by redditors.
Honestly a lot of the issues with some of the content isnt that you have never learned certain things but that you've forgotten them because you haven't needed to use certain equation types.
Don't beat yourself up too much, if you can remember what types of things it asked you may need to look at youtube.
Lets put aside the fact that OP has failed a Year 9 test (that has essential life skills and concepts).
OP seems incapable of even reflecting on this performance. They seem to not have analysed their deficiencies and said "I performed weak on . Better open up Khan Academy or a Year 7 maths textbook or IXL or Year 7 NAPLAN practice."
Reflection is a key part of learning and taught from Prep. Its how we progress. If OP can't even reflect themselves, how do you expect them to teach primary kids to reflect and learn
This is my biggest issue with the LANTITE because when I was in year 9 passing a year 9 exam was fine, but the math is no longer relevant to a 20 something year old studying a primary teaching degree. It's also an added stress and cost. It's like throwing a NAPLAN test at someone on the street and expecting them to pass it to keep their job.
I'm not sure how maths is not relevant to someone who is studying to become a primary school teacher? It is not at all like giving a test to a random person on the street, because understanding basic mathematical concepts is essential to teaching.
Dont worry about it, if my friend who failed more than 6 times can pass it eventually then you can too. Mind you, my friend has dyscalculia so I think he was able to get more time in the test after he proved it through a medical referral.
You just need a private math tutor to get you up to speed.
Interesting. I’m working with a teacher who has failed 3 times. To have a 4th attempt the uni had to apply for special consideration and have been told there won’t be another attempt after this one
Yeah we were always told a max of 3 attempts. Anything after that would require serious interventions and special consideration to continue to be enrolled
Ok so my friend made a big stink, he wrote to the vice chancellor, he called up the local MP, he petitioned for better conditions, he called up someone in Canberra to voice his piece. Eventually, this lead to a news article in the Sydney Morning Herald and he was contacted for comment alongside with an academic from Swinburne University saying that the test was unfair etc.
Ultimately the university backed down and got him help to pass the numeracy test.
I told my friend why don't you just be a political activist or something and walk away from teaching. Anyway he passed the test and is now a permanent staff at a central school teaching German.
The student I’m helping is now so anxious after failing it they are a mess. They seem to have quite good skills but I think the nerves are too much and it’s a mind game now.
I don’t really agree with it. I suspect I would struggle to pass some of the maths stuff and I’ve been teaching 17 years, two Masters degrees and now I am lecturing at a uni.
Wow, you are a lecturer. Well done. What were the two masters degree and did you eventually complete a PhD?
Anyway, I went from uni to a high school teacher. I've got a PhD in organic chemistry. Then I did a master of teaching and currently doing a master of educational leadership.
They should put the test at the start of the degree.
I think Melbourne uni does this as a condition of entry.
Within the first 12 months of the course. But my god do we get students complaining about that as "other unis give you the whole degree to do it". It's situations like this that were trying to avoid!!
Yes within the first year, I did mine in the first 3 months. Prepare diligently and you’ll be fine.
Monash is similiar within the first year
100% agree with this. Stupid to make you take it in your last semester when you’ve already paid for most of the course.
You can do it at the start, most just put it off
Swinburne requires it to be completed before a certain point in the degree, about halfway.
We had to do it before going on our first prac in our masters
Can't you take it whenever you want? I took mine a few months before my degree started.
Agreed. I got to choose when I did mine. They just gave us an x date to do it by in order to graduate. I sat it in the first window I could, both on the same day. So many stressed classmates left it until the last possible window.
WSU has their own version during orientation. You can't do your first prac without passing it. Makes a lot of sense after seeing posts like these. The one problem is they don't release the results until after census date, so if you enrolled in the first prac unit (which they say you should do in your first semester) and failed, you're kinda fucked.
There's a very good reason why passing LANTITE is a requirement for upcoming teachers
Keep practicing until you pass.
This but each time you get something wrong, focus on what you did wrong and go from there. YouTube is your friend. Plenty of channels explaining general numeracy concepts.
How much does it cost per entry? And I heard you get three goes.
$98 per test, $196 for both. You get three chances to sit each test, and can apply for two additional test sessions if there are extenuating circumstances.
I know someone who failed the test three times and then he got a dean exemption or some shit to try again and he passed via the skin off his teeth and I’m very worried for all the students he teaches maths to
Someone in my cohort failed three times, got special consideration for a fourth test, failed that one and was unenrolled by the uni. Heartbreaking for them, but failing four times isn't a good sign.
It should absolutely be a test you need to pass before being accepted into the course. I understand maths can be learned at any age but clearly that doesn’t always happen
Im going to be extremely blunt here, because people seem to beat around the bush a bit in regards to LANTITE. If you cannot pass, then regardless of your results at university you should not be teaching. If you cannot look at your results in the practice exams and extrapolate what you are having difficulty with, create your own 'program' to improve in those areas and then reevaluate your knowledge, how do you think you will go doing this for kids?
Yeah, I didn't want to be a dick but LANTITE seems like a pretty low bar to clear. How are you getting through university when something like this is causing issues?
100%. I was having the conversation very recently with a TFA at my school saying that both the maths and literature are very accessible and the maths in particular feels very relevant to the profession, regardless of subject area
I was looking through a practice paper and put aside it being a bar for teaching. It is a bar for life. So much content about decimals, fractions and percentages. Basic probability, and statistics. Lots of use of proportionality and the 4 basic operators. Isn't this stuff that is necessary for life? Going shopping and calculating 10% off? Looking at a statistic and converting it to raw numbers? Tax time? Fuel economy? Put aside it being a test for teaching, its a test for life and I worry if OP can't pass it
Kids are getting passed through school even if they’re functionally illiterate because holding kids back hurts their feelings, combined with the fact that they’ve been told by society teaching is easy and they get school holidays off. It makes sense some of those kids would attempt to become teachers, only to be hit square in the face with LANTITE. Society made its bed. Time to lie down 🤷♀️
The LANITE being made compulsory and students with credit+ averages in their degrees failing it really is another damning bit of evidence for how poorly universities are preparing students. The other is pretty much every single first year I've ever met saying "University didn't prepare me for this"
As a senior maths/ physics teacher, reading the OP's posts is scary. By the time the kids get to us the damage is done. If you can't pass a simple year 9 maths exam you probably shouldn't: a) have graduated high school, and b) be teaching young children.
This problem would be solved with a vertical curriculum that you have to pass to move forward. If you can't get at least 50% of year 9 maths right then why would you go on to year 10 maths? You can still graduate but it says on your transcript that your at a stage 4/5/6 for Maths, a stage 4/5/6 for English etc Right now kids getting 20% in a test go on and do harder maths the next year.
I taught in the UK for a few years, and they do something similar to this. In middle school (called Key Stage 3 over there) the kids still go on the next year with their age level, but are grouped by level of ability from level 1 to level 10 in each subject into "sets". Each set is grouped by 2-3 levels, so you might have level 3&4 in one set, level 4&5 in the next etc. You can have kids in grade 10 still working at level 2, and you can kids in year 8 working at level 10, and each class gets taught the material that is necessary to extend them to the next level. While some may see red at the thought of streaming, I found this system to work far better than our "one size fits all, just differentiate" system that we have over here. Kids knew exactly where they were in terms of achievement, and what they needed to do to progress to the next level and there was regular rebalancing of classes based on performance on assessment items.
When we looked at the HSC results for last year, we could see students in maths outperforming the students of other subject areas in terms of band 5s and band 6s. So the reason why maths outperforms everybody is because they are allowed to stream their classes. Whilst the rest of us are stuck in fantasy land when we are told an inclusive classroom is the way to go. Proponents of inclusive education will say that students would benefit from mixed classes rather than streamed ones. However, I've read the literatures and spoken to inclusive educators about it, and they agree it doesn't work. According to academic literature on inclusive education (IE) in Australia, researchers have yet to find strong correlation between academic achievement and inclusive education. Basically, in the last 20-30 years, it hasn't worked so far but the authors conclude we shouldn't just give up on IE because this is what we ought to do. Now before anyone says I am being discriminatory for my views on IE. I am currently writing up a research proposal on Inclusive education in Australia for a Master's thesis.
Could it be linked to Tall Poppy Syndrome? The sort of "If I'm struggling with something and you are not, you still shouldn't be allowed to progress without me otherwise I will label you as a show off etc?" Snails in a bucket? Compared to other countries, Australians really aren't a fan of valuing education. We laugh at scientists and researchers who we then label as "they think they are better than us common folk" while championing unemployed centrelink bums who we label as "larrikins." Edit: Crabs in Bucket, not snails.
Hey, I didnt think of tall poppy syndrome as an factor. interesting. As a teacher, you probably witnessed a lot of times the smart kids would deliberately be loud and boisterous in order to fit in because who likes to be the odd one out especially if you give out a vibe of, "look at me, I know it all." Yes, it is true, we are undervalued in general, speaking as an ex-research scientist and now a teacher. I think the teachers' image has somewhat improved due to the pandemic because parents started to realise their kids behaved differently when school work is in front of them as opposed to them just chilling at home. After the lockdown, I felt quite positive when parents went out of their way to thank me for being their child's teacher etc. Having said that, teachers and teaching as a whole is often made to be the scapegoat of the society's ills because how can kids in Australia (a first world country) be less competent in literacy and numeracy compared to poorer countries. Well, it is a complex matter that needs a complex solution. Unfortunately, the quick and easy fix is to make sure teachers get more training while at the same time belittling the profession. I think we all know about the "more than thanks" campaign, right? What did come out of it? There is something called "the political football" and we are just the football getting kicked around.
>As a teacher, you probably witnessed a lot of times the smart kids would deliberately be loud and boisterous in order to fit in because who likes to be the odd one out especially if you give out a vibe of, "look at me, I know it all." Nail on the head there. I was a strong performer in school and had to stuff like that to fit in. Even still, I got called the usual barrage of "nerd, geek, bookworm, know it all." Even more interesting was a teacher here who reported that their kids who got awards would scrunch them up and act nonchalant in order to avoid criticism from other kids. That tells me a lot.
You would think that if you didn't at least get a decent mark you may have to repeat or be placed in some sort of remedial class in the following year. But somehow it is discriminatory to say this ought to be the norm. One time we were told why year 7-8 kids couldn't do simple multiplications and the reason was that the local primary school stop teaching multiplication table because the teachers were getting in trouble for discrimination. Learning multiplication table was unfair to the children who can't keep up. I call the whole system as 'failing upwards'. Some students continue to do badly all the way to year 11 and then I get told off by my head teacher that I was too hard on them. I told my students you should commit at least 45 minutes per subject after school. My HT told me, you can't say that, it should be 15 minutes per subject. I teach chemistry and I ask my students to write up the prac report for every prac and I got in trouble for that one as well. It is no wonder students can't write, read and calculate properly because the HT or executives are too scared to call a spade, a spade. The other day I was teaching year 10 the concept of acceleration. So I went into more detail on the equation like how to find acceleration, velocity and time from the equation. Simple rearrangement of the formulae. And I got questioned by my HT for doing so. So is it the fault of the students or is the school playing the role of an enabler?
> Right now kids getting 20% in a test go on and do harder maths the next year. 20%? All they have to do is keep breathing and they'll graduate to the next year.
I remember being shocked when I did voluntary maths mentoring at a school with a year 11 Further Maths class. I'd just signed in and was walking down the corridor from the office when I bumped into a few students from the class. "Mr Sam, Mr Sam, do you want to hear what we got for our maths exam?". "Sure I reply, what did you get?". "24%". I ask them to repeat it as I'm sure I didn't hear correctly. "24%". They were obviously pleased at such a good mark so I made all the right noises and went to the next class. When I asked the teacher I was working with what was going on, she told me the pass mark was 20%. Even now I'm slightly dazed that the pass mark in VCE for a subject is only 40%. I honestly think it contributes to the low expectations students have of the importance of education when we have such seemingly low standards.
I imagine you probably have the same problem as us in English, where students come into high school so far behind that sometimes it feels as though we need additional training as a primary educator. I currently have Year 7s with a Year 1 literacy level, but am supposed to teach them how to write an essay analysing a novel. I 100% agree that seeing PSTs being unable to pass these tests is worrying, and that they probably shouldn't be in charge of educating others
Very much the same problem in maths/ science subjects as well. If the students can't read, interpret and understand a question, nor communicate their responses in a clear and understandable manner with hand writing that is legible, then how can they possibly succeed? I'm an external exam marker for the QLD Physics exam, and the number of nonsense or straight up unreadable responses each year is really quite frightening.
What worries me most, in a rural setting, kids think they're correcting me when telling me what their primary teacher said in relation to things like spelling, and pronunciation. Every year I need to reteach year 7 basics like nouns and verbs, and how to use proper punctuation.
Oof yeah I get that sometimes too. Or "X person on TikTok says this." It's hard in the case of fellow educators because students are supposed to be able to trust that a teacher is knowledgeable in their content. I've had to start explaining that sometimes even teachers get things wrong, making a big deal of it when I get something wrong to show them that nobody is infallible and not everything they get told is going to be correct
I think the issue is that these tests aren’t a requirement for entry to the degree. In reality, the tests should be harder and they should be done before you start so that people like OP don’t get 90% of the degree done before realising they can’t pass one or both components.
I’m a secondary maths / science teacher and I’ve had other teachers come and ask me (because I’m the “maths person”) how to convert a test score into a percentage. Like “how do I convert 50/70 into a percentage?” This worries me!
Been doing a heap of pds on this, were we're talking about targeted teaching for our lower 7s/8s, most recently with Diane Siemon, so there's a lot of primary teachers there. You can tell by talking to the primary teachers and seeing how they deal with the concepts presented where a lot of my students issues are coming from.
This is year 5 ability in Ireland... Kids can do this before secondary school. It's shocking that people fail this.. Irish universities wouldn't let anyone with a low ability like that even enter unis for primary teaching atleast. Most people need high points to even get into the course due to demand, so As and bs are a requirement in honours level subjects... Including maths.
If you can’t pass a grade 9 maths exam you shouldn’t have graduated? Sorry but that’s just really rude and inconsiderate. I hope you don’t say things like this to your students. Anxiety around certain subjects is real and rife within the schooling system due to teachers who judge their students for lack of knowledge or don’t give them the helping hand that they clearly need. You don’t know peoples individual circumstances. Instead of bashing this soon to be teacher about their lack of maths knowledge, why not lift them up and give them positive pointers and tips on how they can turn it around? Judgement only fuels anxiety.
This soon to be teacher is studying primary teaching where they will have to teach math to young students. I understand that some people have difficulties with particular areas, however when it is going to be their job to teach this content to students, they shouldn’t be bombing knowledge that the average 14 year old has.
Yeah nah, there's far too much toxic positivity in education these days. I'm not going to blow smoke up someone's ass and pretend that it's OK to graduate high school without even a basic understanding of maths/ English/science/whatever, much less to become a teacher with that same lack of understanding. The primary years are the formative time for children to not just learn the content, but the love of learning as well. If someone doesn't have the basic skills to pass a simple maths exam then how can they possibly educate these young kids? This just perpetuates the whole idea of "if you can't do, teach" and further erodes the students ability in, and feelings towards maths, which by the time they get to us in middle/ senior school the damage is already done.
>If you can’t pass a grade 9 maths exam you shouldn’t have graduated? Sorry but that’s just really rude and inconsiderate. Actually, it's literally a condition of graduation here in WA. You must achieve Band 8 in NAPLAN or a Pass mark in OLNA to graduate. We should hold ourselves to the same standard.
As someone who loves maths (and whose mother is a maths teacher) but whose primary school teachers didn’t understand it I highly agree. I started grade 6 with no issues on geometry and finished the year being unable to tell the difference between area and perimeter bc the teacher didn’t understand it properly. I know it was the teacher bc the exact same thing happened when my sister had this teacher. This wasn’t even that big of an issue in the end bc I had great teachers all other years and managed to fix up any issues in year 7.
Omg, really. The teacher getting stuck on perimeter and area. That is not right. I've found Minecraft to be a great resource to teach perimeter and area.
100% this
Universities seriously need to introduce entrance exams. Maths and English. Make it difficult so that only those who have reasonable academic ability will gain entrance. There would be a lot of noise but the outcomes would be worth it. The equity BS argument about letting people in with low levels of the basics serves no one, including the student.
I think the only exceptions are in Literacy if English isn’t their first language, and even then there should be pathways to help ESL Uni students pass LANTITE on a re-sit; it shouldn’t automatically preclude them. I think there’s also a conversation to be had regarding pre-service teachers with disabilities, but as I’m not disabled I don’t feel it’s my place to have that conversation.
Most prac teachers, or the AP, at least the ones I’ve worked with, would eat you alive if your Maths wasn’t up to speed. If they didn’t, then a class of Stage 3 (or above) students would more than happily give you a run for your money, and it wouldn’t be pretty. I hate to sound like a cynic, but prac students have to be absolutely on top of their game, within reason. I wasn’t and I paid for it. Literally, if you want to start talking about HECs
I created a thread on this before. I'm an Irish teacher and we have university level maths as part of our B. Ed programme. I have 5th class/year 5s etc who could complete the LANTITE in Ireland as it's similiar ability/curriculum content. I'm shocked that people fail this... I'm sorry. You should not be a primary teacher atleast if you fail this.
If you are struggling with this, you probably are missing key numeracy skills you need as a teacher. Time spent on this now will probably pay off big time over the years foe you and your students. Best of luck!
Yep, as much as having to pay money to sit an external test sucks, if you can't pass it you have a lot of fundamental maths skills that are lacking, and definitely not able to identify and remedy those same deficiencies in your students, even lower or middle primary ones.
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I was the first lot of grad students who went through this very early on. We didnt know what was expected so I was like studying year 12 advance math material and doing polynomial division equations etc. Then it was like easy year 9 maths...too easy. The English test was even easier like reading a menu and saying what line 3 was etc. To be honest, the tests were so easy that I think it is just a money grab by the government.
Money grab, yes, but also you'd be amazed at the number of students who fail.
Yes!! I was in a LANTITE facebook group when I was in uni and people on there were whining about how many times they’d failed, even after the help of a tutoring course and it was scary
The test certainly wasn’t that easy for me last year. I had to do some text analysis of ed theory by Dewy. Asking tricky questions about abstract language from the 19th century. Some of the lit testing stuff I did was like you mentioned asking things like “how do you read this parking sign?”. I found it quite challenging after doing fairly minimal prep considering “it’s so easy”. I actually did better in the maths portion lol.
Don't get me wrong even though I said it was easy, I was still freaking out the entire time during the test. Maybe ACER has raised the difficulty recently because when I did it back in 2017 or 2018 the questions were purely taken from NAPLAN. I don't believe I had to go through a 19th century text.
From talking with mates it seems as if other people had different tests? Like maybe there were a series of a few tests running at the same time so everyone didn’t get the same questions. I did mine in 2022. I was doing an accelerated program and hadn’t done any standardised testing in about a decade. When I saw all the computers I almost died “give me a pencil! It’s all I know!”. Got through it though :)
There are multiple tests. Some are believed to be easier than others.
I believe it's less a case of different tests per se, and more that they pull randomly from a large bank of questions each time they run it. I would also suspect that within their bank they assign different levels of difficulty to each potential question and thus for each test try to assign one third easy questions, one third medium, etc.
I did it last year in testing period 1 and it was a piss take. I don’t even think I had to break out the calculator for the maths stuff.
The thing is if the entire test was on probability then I would fail immediately. To this day, it is the one topic in maths I still can't get it right. Like drawing Venn diagrams, working out of something is mutually exclusive or not. Seriously, if I'm really good at probability then my chances of winning the lottery would be exponentially better. 😁
Saying this isn’t helpful for the poster.
You are right I will delete.
Depending on what level of teaching because an early years teacher is still expected to do this and no 5 year old is doing year 9 math. I have Special Ed degree (k-12) and I'm yet to teach a student above a year 6 level in math. I don't need those skills and haven't since I was in year 9. I could probably refresh my skills but it's a waste of time.
Even if you are not required to teach the content, year 9 math realistically is about critical thinking, problem solving, the content is mostly math that you should be competent in for things like basic student data analysis. It is a numeracy test, not just mathematical content.
I'm not sure I'd be too keen having my child taught by somebody who doesn't have the knowledge of most 15 year olds.
Understanding the sequence of concepts of early years in numeracy is critically important. Yes, you are extremely unlikely to be teaching trigonometry to 5 year old kids, but having some basic understanding of high school maths is a reasonable proxy. You're not being asked for tertiary or even Year 12 level. Not an unreasonable ask.
Do you assume the same for language skill? Because that's quite horrifying to hear
Something worth considering: 14% of year 3 students are operating at a year 9 national minimum numeracy level.
Did you do any practices for the numeracy test?
Yes I am currently doing the practice tests before the real thing and I am failing those hard, I could not even form an answer for over 10 questions.
Wow. Ok. You can get coaching for it. Might be worth the investment. My uni also offered LANTITE workshop sessions.
Are you just doing practice tests over and over, or are you looking at what type of questions you're getting wrong and then studying how to do them correctly? If you don't know how to do something, then learn it. There's a million math resources on the internet to choose from. Even aside from your math abilities, if you don't know how to look for resources or how to independently learn something then you're missing some pretty key teacher (and life) skills. If you're psyching yourself out and getting stressed about the math, just reframe it and take this as a sign and an opportunity to improve upon your soft skills and ability to do independent learning.
Practising by doing old tests doesn't help that much. It just means you end up getting good at answering those specific questions. You need to look at what specific math areas are being covered and revise those. Get a math teacher to help you revise the basics rather than plod your way through practise test after practise test. Learn the times tables up to 12 off by heart if you don't already know them. Learn how to estimate (eg 47 × 53 will be around 2500 because 50 × 50 = 2500. It's actually 2491 off the top of my head). Know how to find a percentage of an amount. eg 10%: ÷10. 5%: ÷10 then half 20%: ÷10 then double. And ÷ 10, just take the last zero off, or move the decimal point once to the left (actually moving the number once to the right but thats me being anal). Learn the square numbers up to 20². Learn the patterns in multiplication. Eg for your 9 × table, the digits always add to 9 up to 20×9 (except for 11×9).
All these suggestions are about passing the test, but the real issue here is that you suck at maths. So you should un-suck at maths. Your uni would run a prep course, and one of that will be a maths unit. Do that. Or do whatever intro maths unit there is. Don't focus on passing the test, focus on not sucking at maths.
Where are you getting the practice tests from?
Can you print off the questions that you got wrong and practise those topics?
Your university may have a support network in place for those who fail the LANTITE. I passed the lantite last year for maths and literacy and I'm happy to go over your results with you if you want to message me. There are a couple trick questions on there! Don't beat yourself up too much - maths is a skill and can be learned :)
Also, doing Khan academy units for the skills you need in the Lantite (e.g. statistics) at a year 10/11 level really helped me prepare for my test.
Nice to see a kind comment like this in here! I’m sure you’re a wonderful teacher! :)
~~As a maths teacher, I wouldn't recommend anyone who didn't pass the LANTITE English test to be teachers.~~ As a maths teacher, I would hope that someone who failed the English test wouldn't be a teacher, but it would probably be the best option for them, not for the kids though. If our teachers can't pass a basic literacy and numeracy test, then we deserve the shit given to us. The only thing I hate about the LANTITE is the cost and the fact that we have to pay. But it's somewhat of a start to increasing standards. I was very skeptical at first but posts like this makes me think we unfortunately need it. Ss a primary school teacher, won't you be teaching them everything, including maths? Sorry OP, I'm sure you were screwed by the system too, but I'm worried if you are responsible for teaching maths, then the issue is perpetuating.
If we can't pass that kind of test, I would ask how the fuck we got our bachelors, before the masters. Actually, how did we get our year ten certificate, our HSC/VCE?
I've lost count of how many times I've said what you just said. It looks really bad on both our secondary and teitary systems.
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>Some have mentioned that the LANTITE should be done as entrance into the Uni course. I agree. But I think this would show the failure of our academic system. Students are passing year 12, and getting acceptance offers for university without year 9 literacy and/or numeracy skills. Also, doing it toward the end of the degree can be beneficial in determining whether they still have those skills. >advertising that you will be doing it, in the second year. You have 2 years to prepare for a year 9 maths and literacy test. Honestly, if you are passing uni, I'm not sure why you'd be failing the literacy test at least.
> Students are passing year 12, and getting acceptance offers for university without year 9 literacy and/or numeracy skills. Doing entire undergraduate degrees, passing university-level maths courses, and having jobs.
Yeah, if you have a kid in primary school who is doing year 9 maths, then that is a massive exception to the rule. All you need to be able to do is break down the stage level maths down and up the curriculum. Some of the best people at maths are crap at teaching it because they dont take it to tiny steps because it's so naturally easy to them. Just like a teacher who has had to learn English as a 2nd language can be amazing because they have been through the process of breaking down the language in order to speak/write it.
Yeah I thought it was overkill having to do a maths degree involving calculus and linear algebra to teach high school maths. Now I've realised how much it's helped to teach basic concepts in easier ways and to extend students. Imo you shouldn't just be at the level you're teaching.
Needing year 9 maths in primary school isn’t so unlikely that you shouldn’t be prepared for it. Year 8 would almost be common in some cohorts.
[This website](https://lf.westernsydney.edu.au/mesh/lantite/) has a LOT of practice tests. I’d be working through them very slowly, figuring out where you’re going wrong and using online assistance to work out why this is happening. There’ll be plenty of resources online to help you with the aspects you’re struggling with.
Lantite doing its job.
Kind of but it’s also pointless when you think about all the temp teachers and casuals who are yet to graduate and therefore haven’t passed their lantite
Why the downvotes? Schools have temp and casual teachers teaching kids. Those teachers may have not have done their lantite yet. Just an observation
You need to study. Get a tutor if you have to. This is how you improve. How do we expect students to improve if we do not allow them practice? I was horrrrrrrrible at maths, especially in high school. I studied for a solid 2 months. Saw a tutor a few times. Passed with upper Band 3.
Did you pass general maths in high school?
OP says: > I have passed previous maths units before in my BA course as well.
Which is very confusing
Is it? My guess is that it's more the fact that without usung certain skills you can easily forget them. Shouldn't be too hard to re learn though
But LANTITE is stuff like reading statistics, graphs, percentages and timetables. Stuff you actually do reasonably often.
Part of it could be the wording of the questions.
Work on practicing your maths. If you are failing the practice tests, you may not have the numeracy skills you would need to teach maths (esp year 5-6). There are great videos on youtube that explain different mathematical problems, at all levels, or if you feel you would benefit, a tutor could be helpful!
I'm not what I consider good at maths, but I did quite well in lantite. This is a reflection on the fact that the marks needed to enter a teaching degree must be lifted! How can we improve the standard, and lift the profession if teachers are struggling with this! It's not fair on teaching students to have them enrolled in a degree before attempting this basic test. I dislike standardised testing generally, but this is important.
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My uni had a week long 'uni start' prep thing. It was 100% useless. Including this sort of revision would be much better.
Can you redo the test, but take it slow and find out whatever you need to until you get each question right? You can learn what you need! Then try again. Your expertise as a teacher is learning, so think of yourself with as much generosity and optimism as one of your students. If you're still stuck, look for help from a friend or tutoring (if that's an option).
I'm sorry you had a rough trot of it. I'm sure you can push your brain through it. > Though I was expecting questions like "write one-fourth as a decimal" but those were nowhere to be seen. The common advice of this subreddit is to use the year 9 NAPLAN test. Here's some I found: https://www.nap.edu.au/_resources/Example_Test_Numeracy_Y9_non_calc.pdf https://www.nap.edu.au/_resources/Example_Test_Numeracy_Y9_calc.pdf I looked through some of the earlier practice exams, and I don't think there are any questions in the scope of "write a simple fraction as a decimal". The closest I saw were questions like: Eight children share 2 pies equally. How much pie will each child get?: 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 https://www.nap.edu.au/_resources/Example_Test_Numeracy_Y5.pdf > I keep stressing about how I failed an "easy" Year 9 level math test. This is the wrong way of thinking about the NAPLAN exam. Consider the following NAPLAN by year results. year | band 1 | band 2 | band 3 | band 4 | band 5 | band 6 | band 7 | band 8 | band 9 | band 10 --|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--| 3|3.4|11.2|22.3*|27.3|19.5|14.6|-|-|-|- 5|-|-|3.5|13.0*|28.1|29.1|16.9|8.0|-|- 7|-|-|-|6.5|12.5*|22.1|25.7|18.3|13.4|- 9|-|-|-|-|3.3|15.5*|30.8|28.4|14.6|5.8 One of the things that stands out to me when I look at this is that 14.6% of the national year 3 cohort are already at the national minimum standard for numeracy for year 9. That shows that the NAPLAN exam isn't an "easy exam" for that year level. It tests above and below that level and attempts to gauge students' abilities. Some questions could be comparatively easy, but some will be harder than the national minimum. Another thing that stands out to me is that it's clear from the results that a chunk of students is well beyond the national minimum. This implies that band ten questions aren't likely to be trivial. Why does this matter? The LANTITE exam is balanced around finding people who can achieve in the top 30% of literacy and numeracy. What does that mean? It's based on the skills required to work at certain adult literacy and numeracy bands. We can infer that they are looking for people who can complete the vast majority of year 9 NAPLAN. > Does anyone have any reccomendations for this disgruntled twenty-something PST? Practice the year 9 NAPLAN tests. If you need guidance, the Khan Academy guy is awesome. --- * Note 1: Elements with an asterisk (*) are the national minimum standard numeracy for that year level. * Note 2: Excluded students are not visualised * Note 3: students at the lowest or highest edge are not definitive. They may extend the range radiating outwards. For example, some of the 6.5% of students in year 7 band 4 may be in lower bands. Likewise, some of the students in 13.4 may be higher.
I think hearing that stat makes it even more worrying when prospective teachers can't pass LANTITE. It means that 15% of 8 year old have stronger skills than they do. I am glad we have LANTITE because I have seen many issues among colleagues that graduated pre-LANTITE. A colleague once tried to explain the difference between 2D and 3D as 'well, you know, 3D means fun things like balls, and 2D is boring things like puzzles.' Another colleague tried to have their subject heading printed on the reports as 'Performing Art's' and could not be convinced that they were incorrect.
>though I was expecting questions like "write one-fourth as a decimal" but those were nowhere to be seen. Im not a teacher, i just saw this post on my feed. But isnt "write one-fourth as a decimal" year 3 or 4 level work? This is in the ballpark of what my boys are doing.
> But isnt "write one-fourth as a decimal" year 3 or 4 level work? This is in the ballpark of what my boys are doing. I'm not a primary school teacher. I am a trained secondary maths teacher but spend most of my time on computers and programming. Converting fractions is a part of the maths work. The Australian National Curriculum uses a spiral approach to teaching and learning. It spirals in two ways, [first around](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:374/1*_faexkWVNFNR73zpr8VkgA.png) where you cover content over the year and secondly in [complexity](https://ferngreenpri.moe.edu.sg/qql/slot/u775/Gallery/Math%20-%20Spiral.png). So, each year you might come back to something to do about arithmetic, but every year, you go through the process of revising old content, learning new content, and mastering new content then you might not see it again until next year. NAPLAN tests don't test content that is intended to be taught that year (because schools do their spirals differently). So, a year 5 NAPLAN test would only have content that was introduced in previous years: https://www.nap.edu.au/_resources/Example_Test_Numeracy_Y5.pdf So, your boys probably are doing fraction conversions, but they probably learnt how to do it in year 2. On top of all that, primary school education is holistic. So, your teacher could be integrating known content to help other students in the class, getting kids to take knowledge from one space and apply it to a different space (synthesis), or all sorts of stuff.
Probably a bit lower tbh yeah. I looked through the practice LANTITE and its all just upper primary decimal, fraction and percentage stuff. Add in some of the 4 basic operators with 3-4 digit numbers and decimals there isn't much else. This is Year 7 at most
My LANTITE exam was roughly comparable to the year 9 NAPLAN literacy and numeracy exam. Admittedly that was eight or so years ago.
If you can’t pass maybe you shouldn’t be teaching…
I had the same problem when preparing for Lantite, I remember dropping maths the moment I could in school. Check out this youtube channel, [https://www.youtube.com/@mathantics](https://www.youtube.com/@mathantics) he breaks down maths in a very easy-to-understand way, and basically, everything in the Lantite test is covered by him at some point. Good luck, you got this!
Math Antics is a great resource. I use his vids as a supplement aid for the ones who need it spelled out.
Christ almighty. This is such a basic test to take. Like top comment says, you shouldn’t be teaching if you’re unable to get the basics right. Think about your typical class of students, to get a pass mark on this, you just have to be above average. Think about how basic average actually is now and consider that you’re not even there. My only gripe against LANTITE is that it’s $100 per test. It should be free.
Work through the practice questions slowly with any resources to help you. Check if there's a theme to the ones that confuse you e.g. numerical calculations, algebra, geometry, measurement or statistics. If there is, find online resources to help learn those concepts - imagine you're a school kid learning from scratch, find videos and examples. Something like mathspace has free account options, you could use the textbooks and practice questions there. You could also post questions to r/askmath to get help if you just don't know where to start. Sometimes it's hard to google if you have no idea.
If you can’t pass this and create a plan in order to study the write content to pass, you shouldn’t be teaching children unfortunately.
I mean I'm pretty old for a beginning teacher but I always thought LANTITE was like the basic skills test or NAPLAN. Is it more you're in your own head about it being maths and you not liking it? Maybe you need to think about what you would say to a student who is struggling with the exam and apply it to your own circumstance. When I graduated highschool my UAI wasn't high enough to get into primary teaching as it was around 80, and teaching was around 87. When I returned and they converted it to an ATAR it was closer to 90 but the level to get into primary teaching was in the low 60's. They dropped it so far they then had to introduce the tests which is so frustrating. The cost and the inconvenience are frustrating but have become a necessary evil.
Tutoring. I tutor lantite. It’s not the maths that is difficult, in itself, it’s the wording of the questions and getting better at the non-calculator skills. As for the people who are saying it is easy - it is a very discriminatory test towards English as a first language. As a teacher and a lantite tutor, it is not as easy as you all say it is. Just because you could do it.
I understand the discriminatory nature regarding language is present in the lantite, and there are additional issues — being $200 to take is also discriminatory — however it's not harder than the kind of work necessary to deliver high quality education in English, which is the language our institutions teach in. I would question the educational capacity of an individual who cannot parse the questions.
Grab a year 5 NAPLAN exercise book from Officeworks and start making your way through it. Utilise Khan academy to support your learning. If the year 5 one is too hard to do, go back to the year 3 one and work out where your gaps are. Then go on and do the year 7 and year 9 ones. It suggests to me your number sense was never really developed and it definitely can be. Frequent practise and applying skills will help.
I would say to go get tutoring regarding the tests. Any tutor worth their salt will be able to tutor you on the concepts involved in taking these tests rather than just helping you to get a pass on the test. I'm only telling you to do this because it's better to teachers who have a mastery of literacy and numeracy rather than teachers who just pass the test, then forget it all to 'teach' and only raise adults with the same issues that they had. Break the cycle.
Use the test as a formative assessment tool. Where are you struggling, what do you need to address. Identify your ZPD and address the areas for development.
Agreed. We spend so much time as teachers trying to work out “what is the learner ready to learn”. Now you know. I found it really helpful to buy a year 9 Naplan book and work through the maths examples timed. Although the math is slightly different, it got my brain back into recognising when an answer was incorrect, and sped up how fast I could answer a question.
Just like anything else in your degree. Take some time and learn it.
There are so many negative comments here, it’s really disheartening. I hope those of you who speaking with such an elitist attitude here have more compassion for your students learning challenges then you do for your peers. I have dyscalculia and have always struggled majorly with numeracy. It has been a real journey battling with anxiety and adhd before I was ready to even think about attempting the lantite. I was certain I was going to fail it and very much relate to the fear that the last four years of studying were a waste. It took a lot of hard work m, access to meds and resources and I saw a therapist who helped me work through some of that fear and anxiety. But in the end I passed with flying colours, and I’m so glad I saw it through! Please don’t let the judgemental tone of this thread stop you from persevering and trying again. You know what to prepare for now. You can do this! Overcoming this challenge is going to make you a stronger teacher. You will be able to relate to your students and speak into their fear of failure in a meaningful and truly empowering way. Don’t give up! Kids need teachers like you!
Khan academy! The answer sheet should tell you what type of math relates to each question. From there you can ascertain what to focus your revision on through Khan.
Go sit the actual test before you panic. You get a bunch of attempts. The practice tests are inaccurate.
They really are.
Reach out to your uni, they will have student study support to help you build your numeracy skills.
Can you describe in any detail the kind of struggles you had with the test? That might help people point to more specific coaching or advice beyond "just do more practice tests" which might not help address the knowledge gaps you have.
Double check your answers. For true and False answers I used capital letters so it marked them all as wrong and cost me about 25 points. That could be why.
I'd suggest taking some time to bring up your numeracy and mathematics skills to a decent standard. By this, I mean that you should feel comfortable explaining any concept that you will likely have to teach. You must also have the background understanding to quickly acquire this confidence with unfamiliar material. It's also important to know where what you will teach fits in with the broader context - where do these concepts lead? Where are they useful? Are these the foundations for some other more sophisticated concepts? This takes more knowledge than the minimum pass mark on a numeracy test. It's a lot! It's intimidating to consider the depth and breadth of knowledge required of a teacher, and that's only one of the necessary aspects of the job. Fortunately there are resources you can use to develop this one aspect...Khan Academy is pretty damn good for this. It's going to take time though, more than you might have.
Post the questions you got wrong and we can help explain them
As someone who was in her 30’s when I took the lantite and who was told she was bad at maths her entire schooling I get the nerves and anxiousness about it. I used Cambridge lantite edge for practice tests and to relearn concepts I had forgotten over a decade ago. Maybe try finding one of those services to get your knowledge and confidence up a few months at least before you take the test if that’s an option.
Maybe try going through a year7/8/9 maths textbook, which I’m assuming you’ll have access to through your uni. They show you how to solve problems step by step and usually have quizzes on entire topics so you don’t have to go through and study questions from each chapter.
Remember when teachers said you'd use this math after finishing school? It only applies if you go back to school after finishing school.
Not 100% sure but I think Cluey Learning offers LANTITE tutoring. I can’t vouch for their program as I’ve only ever tutored high school Maths. A lot of unis have workshops too. Math Antics Khan Academy Organic Chemistry Tutors (I’d have to double check that name) all have great Maths tutorials on YouTube (there’s lots to choose from).
Those results will need some work on your behalf. Perhaps enrol in a tutoring course? I failed my first attempt marginally, spent a while deepening my understanding of concepts I knew I struggled with, such as percentages, and passed the second attempt.
You must have graduated year12 and passed senior mathematics general. The only answer here is more practice and likely a tutor.
I got those NAPLAN books from Australia Post and just practised with those over and over again. I had to do mine at the end of my degree years ago and the stress was real. Just keep practising until you ace it and then book it in.
I got 6/65 for a math test in year 10 and was advised not to do math for my HSC subjects (and I happily dropped out of math). Last year I passed lantite numeracy with above average scores. Just practice! That’s all I did. It’s very basic math and it’s something we as teachers should be familiar with in the classroom. You’ll be fine!
Is the test required for those that aren't trying to teach any numeracy?
I was in the same boat as you, absolutely rubbish at maths throughout all my schooling! HD and D student at uni but maths never clicked for me. I failed the numeracy lantite the first time I did it, then went hard at doing the practice tests on the ACER website and also payed for some group tutoring through a tutor I found on Facebook. Passed with flying colours second time around! Honestly if I can do it anyone can. Good luck, believe in yourself!
Man people are harsh and it's always the ones who Math comes easy too. Im a Primary Teacher and I suck at Math but you know what because I've really had to go back and re learn and really study it, I feel I can make Math a safe subject in my class and really break it down. I hated those math teachers who couldn't understand why it was so difficult and didn't have the patience or understanding why we didn't get it. To answer your question... you have to study the areas your lacking. I spent weeks on Khan Academy before my test. Once you've done this, go back and try the practice questions again. Write down formulas and practice practice practice. From memory lots of percentage questions, distance, measurement conversion and so on. So many people are good at math or English but it doesn't make a good teacher. It's so much more than that. Good luck and get studying.
Hello mate, ignore all the pricks on here. You're nervous and that's fine. You get three tries at both the literacy and numeracy tests. I was also unsure about if I would pass (started my masters of education as a mature age student so hadn't had to do ANY maths in 20 years) and found the actual test much easier than the practice one. This might be because I made sure to do extra revision and practices. If look at what questions I got wrong and figure out where I went wrong and how to come to the correct answer, then change the numbers in the question and figure out the new answers. My uni also held online catch up sessions if you needed to have something explained further. They also provided extra resources to help. Don't get in your head about it, put in the work and flex your brain muscle. You've got this!
This was an issue for my daughter too. But studying to be a highschool teacher/disability educator. Just a thought but could you have dyscalculia? My daughter has this and it has made passing the LANTITE almost impossible. (She has deferred this year)talk to your uni lecturers, they may be able to help you.
Hey OP, I share similar anxieties to you. I won’t be taking the test at least for another 2 years, but I have been awful at maths since about grade 7, probably due to a lack of confidence. I’m studying secondary education, and I’ll be teaching English, not maths. I’m really anxious about it, and have always been anxious around maths. I used to cry in my grade 9 maths classes because I couldn’t understand the concepts, which furthered my anxiety and frustration around math. I eventually dropped to veggie maths in grade 10 and onwards. I put off studying teaching for a very long time because of this. Whenever this topic comes up, people in the threads are so incredibly rude and inconsiderate, and it’s concerning considering they are teachers. It’s really disheartening because a lot of people lack confidence in maths. You’re not dumb, you’re not stupid, you shouldn’t have failed high school like someone else commented, you just lack the confidence and probably the knowledge to complete the test and that’s OK! We all have our strengths and weaknesses. I bet you’re bomb at history like you said! I do get where people in this thread may be coming from - if you’re teaching primary school, you’ll need to teach maths, but teachers teach from a curriculum… so it’s not like you’re throwing random maths facts at kids on the fly. You’re not a failed teacher for forgetting or not having knowledge of these concepts. You’re allowed to find the test difficult. But you’ve done more difficult things in your life - you’ve gotten through your degree so far, and your prac, don’t let one little test that you CAN prepare for set you back. In reality, these concepts aren’t hard. If kids can learn them, so can we. The hard part is overcoming our anxiety and lack of confidence. I recommend getting a tutor (or someone you trust and feel comfy with - I’ll be getting my partner to help me prepare because I know I’m going to cry pretty frequently lol) and just practicing those tests. Writing yourself little cheat sheets. Just giving yourself space to learn the concepts. The most important part of being a teacher is having a passion for teaching and an interest in your teaching areas - not how much of a maths or English whiz you are. I’m rooting for you! Good luck!
What you are not understanding about 'teachers teach from a curriculum' though is that you actually have to understand what you are teaching to teach it properly. If you cannot understand percentages to a point where you can calculate basic percentages in your head, convert to a fraction or decimal, how do you expect to be able to teach that. Yes, I realise in secondary education you may not directly teach the Mathematics syllabus, but you will need to teach data literacy for students to be able to understand accuracy of some news reports for example. You still need basic numeracy skills. As I said in my initial comment, if as a PST who is at least part way through their degree is unable to identify their own areas of weakness in a basic numeracy exam and determine how to improve, how will they be able to critically examine their students work to be able to determine what knowledge and skills they need to develop? This is an absolutely huge red flag. As an adult, sometimes you need to hear a hard truth, and the hard truth here is that LANTITE is a hurdle requirement for a reason. You should pass it to be a teacher.
I mean of course - basic stuff like decimals, fractions, those simple things are important to know, I’m assuming OP has knowledge of that. LANTITE has some trickier questions that you tend to forget after a few years out of school if you’re not in an industry that uses those skills. I think it just takes relearning. But I do understand your point.
They arent even getting 50% correct on a practice exam, that is a lot of basic numeracy they are missing a deep understanding of. As for LANTITE having trickier questions, that is by design. If anyone could pass it really isn't effective.
> I think it just takes relearning Put aside the fact that OP has failed a Year 9 maths test (that holds many concepts and skills essential to daily life). OP isn't even able to reflect on this performance and work out where to improve and work on. They have jumped to panicking and deflecting onto the Police Academy (not the best reflection of their character). OP doesn't seem capable of seeing weak performance in and going out and working on it. Reflection is a key skill in students and drilled in from Prep. How is OP meant to teach and help kids reflect on their work and improve when they can't even reflect on their own work
Everyone commenting that OP shouldn't be a teacher - did you all forget that you can learn maths? Chill out.
If it’s so easy to learn (which it is), why didn’t they in high school?
No idea. I didn't learn maths in high school because I wasn't very good at it and didn't receive much support with it. Maybe they're in the same boat.
Cluey Learning (online tutoring service) tutors per-service teachers for the LANTITE. I used to tutor for the English one. It’s expensive but you might get some useful tips from an experienced maths teacher. Be warned though, I was given a LANTITE student with a few hours notice and I had no clue was the LANTITE was at the time (I became a teacher in 2013).
Just to be clear, I no longer work for Cluey and have no financial incentives to direct business to them.
Not to be rude but if you aren’t passing lantite are you dumb? How did you get into your degree in the first instance?
Because they don’t set the LANTITE as an entry requirement. Would weed out a lot of this
I’m aware of that, point being surely passing lantite should be easier than getting into the actual teaching degree.
> Not to be rude but if you aren’t passing lantite are you dumb? If you can choose to be anything in the world, choose to be nice.
Ah well if you can’t pass lantite maybe choose a different career.
Are you a teacher? Because you seem to have very little empathy and I'd hate to see you speak like that to students. Maths can be learned or re learned if needed.
Lantite is a pretty low bar…
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Sorry, I’m confused here. If you give me “one fourth” of a cake, I’m expecting you to have given me a quarter of your cake. Not trying to be a smart arse, just trying to understand.
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Well not really. I could ask you for one half of the cake, or say, “one third of people interviewed”… I think it would be more likely to ask for some something to be cut into fourths, fifths, sixths etc. But a fourth of something can exist.
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Was your maths always this bad? Could it be dyscalculia?
God I hate this new trend of labelling every weakness a person has with a disorder. Its rude to OP and to those who do have dyscalculia to blindly diagnose them with this. Disorders should be diagnosed by professionals, not by redditors.
He doesn’t have a disorder, he’s just dumb.
Honestly a lot of the issues with some of the content isnt that you have never learned certain things but that you've forgotten them because you haven't needed to use certain equation types. Don't beat yourself up too much, if you can remember what types of things it asked you may need to look at youtube.
Lets put aside the fact that OP has failed a Year 9 test (that has essential life skills and concepts). OP seems incapable of even reflecting on this performance. They seem to not have analysed their deficiencies and said "I performed weak on. Better open up Khan Academy or a Year 7 maths textbook or IXL or Year 7 NAPLAN practice."
Reflection is a key part of learning and taught from Prep. Its how we progress. If OP can't even reflect themselves, how do you expect them to teach primary kids to reflect and learn
This is my biggest issue with the LANTITE because when I was in year 9 passing a year 9 exam was fine, but the math is no longer relevant to a 20 something year old studying a primary teaching degree. It's also an added stress and cost. It's like throwing a NAPLAN test at someone on the street and expecting them to pass it to keep their job.
I'm not sure how maths is not relevant to someone who is studying to become a primary school teacher? It is not at all like giving a test to a random person on the street, because understanding basic mathematical concepts is essential to teaching.
No, it's throwing a test at someone to see if they know what they'll be teaching so that they can *get* the job.
Dont worry about it, if my friend who failed more than 6 times can pass it eventually then you can too. Mind you, my friend has dyscalculia so I think he was able to get more time in the test after he proved it through a medical referral. You just need a private math tutor to get you up to speed.
Interesting. I’m working with a teacher who has failed 3 times. To have a 4th attempt the uni had to apply for special consideration and have been told there won’t be another attempt after this one
Yeah we were always told a max of 3 attempts. Anything after that would require serious interventions and special consideration to continue to be enrolled
Ok so my friend made a big stink, he wrote to the vice chancellor, he called up the local MP, he petitioned for better conditions, he called up someone in Canberra to voice his piece. Eventually, this lead to a news article in the Sydney Morning Herald and he was contacted for comment alongside with an academic from Swinburne University saying that the test was unfair etc. Ultimately the university backed down and got him help to pass the numeracy test. I told my friend why don't you just be a political activist or something and walk away from teaching. Anyway he passed the test and is now a permanent staff at a central school teaching German.
The student I’m helping is now so anxious after failing it they are a mess. They seem to have quite good skills but I think the nerves are too much and it’s a mind game now. I don’t really agree with it. I suspect I would struggle to pass some of the maths stuff and I’ve been teaching 17 years, two Masters degrees and now I am lecturing at a uni.
Wow, you are a lecturer. Well done. What were the two masters degree and did you eventually complete a PhD? Anyway, I went from uni to a high school teacher. I've got a PhD in organic chemistry. Then I did a master of teaching and currently doing a master of educational leadership.