Student results stall over seven years

A new report has revealed there has been no improvement in literacy and numeracy skills by Australian students under the controversial NAPLAN tests.

However, writing results for Year 7 and 9 students have dropped since 2011.

The results show that since 2008, reading, grammar and writing skills have improved for year 3 students and spelling and numeracy have improved for year 5.

He said improvements had been recorded across the country and SA still fell short of the national average in 18 categories.

“So we’re pleased that the deterioration has been arrested but we’re still a long way behind the rest of Australia”. Unlike primary schools, where students are achieving more in key areas, high schools are not improving.

“Improvement in NAPLAN results comes about when student learning improves”.

“There has been a lift in year 9 NAPLAN results this year, and early indications are that the introduction of the OLNA has helped with this, by emphasising the importance of literacy and numeracy”, Mr Collier said.

“I’d like to be reporting better results; they are not bad results, but I’d like to see a few improvement”.

Mr Randall said NAPLAN was “not in itself a means of improving the quality of education”, but provided data for “objective discussion about what is working and what is not”.

University of Melbourne emeritus professor Patrick Griffin said he was not surprised NAPLAN results had flat-lined.

“Unless NAPLAN, or any other testing strategy, looks to give teachers advice on how to make the change, then that change doesn’t happen”.

“The release of the 2015 Naplan results provides another opportunity for all those involved in education to analyse the results and to celebrate success”.

Over the seven years since NAPLAN was introduced Queensland and WA schools have also raised the proportion of students who meet national minimum standards in reading and numeracy. Last year’s persuasive writing question was criticised for being too confusing and many students scored zero.

Numeracy at Year 5 saw a statistically significant increase from 2008 as did Year 5 spelling. The NAPLAN results have been released two weeks earlier than in previous years, after a government push for a faster turnaround. “It suggests that a good lever to pull is to focus on teacher collaboration within a school to improve performance of teachers”, Ms Campbell-Allen said.

She pointed out that the OECD’s PISA data shows that, compared with some countries, there is a greater difference in how Australian high school students perform within a school, than between schools.