NATIONAL TESTING – NAPLAN Yr 3, 5 & 7 Test Results

In May 2008, for the first time, students in Years 3, 5 & 7 and 9 throughout Australia sat the same national literacy and numeracy tests. These tests replace the existing state based tests.

Previously tests were held in August. This obviously makes it more challenging for our youngest students because they have only had two years and four months at school; students in other states have had an extra year of school prior to sitting the Year 3 tests. This inequity will only be addressed when the prep year, which began last year, reaches Year 3. Obviously a twelve month age difference makes a significant difference to these youngest children, not only in the fact that they have had twelve months less learning but they are also young children to be sitting such long and formal tests.

These literacy and numeracy tests form a key part of the National Assessment Program endorsed by all Australian Ministers for Education. The aim of the tests is to provide a measure of how Australian schools and students are performing in the areas of reading, writing, spelling and numeracy. We support the intent of these tests and welcome the opportunity they give us to benchmark our school. These tests are, of course, only one measure and need to be considered along with school based assessments which are designed to identify students’ wide ranging strengths and diverse areas of need. Being point in time tests some children and especially the youngest ones may under-perform on the day for any number of reasons.

Parents should also know that the tests are for the first time set against National Statements of Learning and not the Queensland curriculum as has been the case in previous years. Our school is obliged under the Accreditation Act to use the Queensland curriculum, however, those documents do not yet precisely reflect the National Statements. This will be a challenge in the short term; your student is certainly learning the content and concepts contained within the Statements but because of where they are placed in the current syllabi, they may not have been covered fully by the time of the test in May.

Year 3 2008 Results

	State Mean	SFX Mean	% achieved at or above the expected Band Level St Francis Xavier	% achieved at or above the expected Band Level Queensland	% achieved at or above the expected Band Level Australia
Reading	372	381	91.3%	87.0%	92.1%
Writing	391	416	97.6%	92.5%	95.4%
Language Conventions – Spelling	366	384	95.2%	87.1%	92.4%
Language Conventions – Grammar / Punctuation	370	381	92.8%	86.3%	91.7%
Numeracy	368	376	94.7%	91.9%	95%

Year 5 2008 Results

	State Mean	SFX Mean	% achieved at or above the expected Band Level St Francis Xavier	% achieved at or above the expected Band Level Queensland	% achieved at or above the expected Band Level Australia
Reading	467	489	96%	86.7%	90.9%
Writing	468	501	100%	89.5%	92.5%
Language Conventions – Spelling	461	493	100%	88.0%	91.7%
Language Conventions – Grammar / Punctuation	477	498	94.7%	88.6%	91.9%
Numeracy	457	465	94.7%	90.2%	92.6%

 Year 7 2008 Results

	State Mean	SFX Mean	% achieved at or above the expected Band Level St Francis Xavier	% achieved at or above the expected Band Level Queensland	% achieved at or above the expected Band Level Australia
Reading	529	536	100%	92.7%	94.2%
Writing	521	546	98.7%	89.9%	91.8%
Language Conventions – Spelling	527	540	94.6%	90.1%	92.4%
Language Conventions – Grammar / Punctuation	519	532	96%	90.9%	91.6%
Numeracy	540	566	100%	94.6%	95.4%