Premier

Best NAPLAN Results Yet For Victorian Kids

27 August 2018

Victorian students have again shown they are outperforming other states, with today’s NAPLAN results showcasing the effect of the Andrews Labor Government’s massive investment in education over the past four years.

After a decade of little change in performance, Victoria has bucked previous trends with steady growth since 2015 and significant improvement in a number of areas in this year’s results.

Victorian students achieved the State’s best NAPLAN results ever in reading and numeracy in both primary and secondary schools. We are leading the nation in NAPLAN in the primary years, with Victorian students in Years 3 and 5 coming leading in five out of the ten NAPLAN testing areas.

That figure rises to eight out of 10 areas – Year 3 reading, writing, grammar and numeracy and Year 5 reading, numeracy, writing and grammar – if the ACT is excluded, with Victorian primary schools coming second in any area which they did not top.

Grade 5 reading results have increased steadily every year from a mean score of 508.3 in 2015 to 519.9 in this year. Year 3 numeracy results have also seen steady improvement, from 409.7 in 2015 to 418.4 in 2018.

Secondary students also saw improvements, with Victoria’s Year 7 students the first or second best performing in four out of five testing areas – reading, numeracy, writing and spelling. Compared with last year, Year 5 and Year 9 students saw their mean score increase in four out of five of the testing areas: reading, numeracy, spelling and grammar and punctuation.

Writing results have fallen across Australia, but Victoria still leads the nation in most year levels. As ACARA have indicated, results fell at the secondary level by less for students in schools doing the writing test online. The reasons for this must be investigated.

The Labor Government’s Education State reforms set 10 ambitious targets, including more students achieving results in the top two NAPLAN bands in reading and maths. The sustained investment has led to improved results against those targets, proving Victoria has turned a corner, with more students in more year levels achieving results in the top two bands in 2018 than any year since the Education State reforms were introduced.

The results show the progress made on the way to reaching the Education State targets, including the number of Year 5 students in the top two bands for Reading increasing from 36.9 per cent in 2015 to 42.8 per cent in 2018. More Year 9 students are achieving at the highest levels in numeracy, with an increase from 23.8 per cent of students in top two bands last year to 27.2 per cent this year.

Quotes attributable to Minister for Education James Merlino

“With scores improving in many testing areas our students are breaking away from the pack and leading the nation across multiple learning areas. This is further proof that the sustained investment from the Labor Government is having an impact.”

“We’ve invested heavily to make Victoria the Education State and these results show it’s paying off. A special thanks should go to our wonderful principals, teachers and support staff who work hard each and every day to give our kids every opportunity to a great education.”

Reviewed 19 August 2020

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