More meaningful reporting to parents and carers
In the coming weeks, parents and carers across Australia will receive NAPLAN Individual Student Reports (ISRs) that more clearly and simply show their child's NAPLAN achievement against the higher national standards agreed by all education ministers earlier this year. This will help parents, carers and teachers to make sure children are getting the best out of their schooling and learning the skills they need to succeed at school, and beyond.
Parents and carers will begin receiving the new reports in the first half of Term 3.
The new reporting shows how students are achieving in literacy and numeracy skills against challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing, based on previous years of schooling. The new reports have 4 levels of proficiency, "Exceeding", "Strong", "Developing" and "Needs additional support", and will more clearly identify those students who need additional support.
"This new approach to NAPLAN reporting is based on advice provided by expert teacher panels and the views of parents and carers themselves," said ACARA CEO, David de Carvalho. "The new reporting system clearly states whether students are meeting these higher expectations. Parents want to know if their child is where they should be at that stage of their schooling. With these new reports, they will know at a glance whether students need literacy or numeracy support to improve and meet the NAPLAN expectations for their year level."
The specific timing of the release of the ISRs to parents and carers varies across states and territories but schools should begin receiving the reports in coming weeks to provide to parents and carers.
"It's important that as teachers, schools, parents and carers begin receiving these reports that they keep in mind that expectations have been set at a higher level than previously and it is to be anticipated that a higher number of children will not yet be meeting the expectations at the time of testing," Mr de Carvalho said.
Schools and teachers are best placed to discuss a student's progress. NAPLAN tests are a point in time assessment and only one aspect of each school's assessment and reporting process. As they are held once every 2 years for each student, they cannot replace the extensive, ongoing assessments made by teachers about student performance.
This new way of reporting means that NAPLAN results from 2023 will not be comparable to the NAPLAN results from previous years. Reporting on NAPLAN changes over time will start this year, building upon the 2023 results.
BACKGROUND
Each child's NAPLAN Individual Student Report now shows how they're performing against these 4 easy-to-understand proficiency levels:
- Exceeding: The student's result exceeds expectations at the time of testing.
- Strong: The student's result meets challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing.
- Developing: The student's result indicates that they are working towards expectations at the time of testing.
- Needs additional support: The student's result indicates that they are not achieving the learning outcomes expected at the time of testing. They are likely to need additional support to progress satisfactorily.
Additional information for each year level is available on the ISRs and on the National Assessment Program (NAP) website that makes it clear to parents and carers what their child's literacy and numeracy skills are at the time of NAPLAN testing and supports discussions with their school on their child's progress.
The new approach replaces the previous numerical NAPLAN bands and the national minimum standard. The proficiency levels on the new reports are based on the expert judgement of teachers who used student responses to NAPLAN questions linked to the Australian Curriculum to identify what students should be able to answer at the time of testing in each year to be considered as having met a challenging but reasonable expectation.
Student reports continue to show the national average and the range of achievement for the middle 60 per cent of students in their year level, allowing comparison of a child's achievement against these measures.
Detailed information on the assessments is at: https://www.nap.edu.au/
