August 2018
NAPLAN 2018 summary released
Today ACARA has released the NAPLAN 2018 summary information, providing preliminary results at the national, and state and territory level for each school year (3, 5, 7 and 9) and for all domains tested in NAPLAN.
The data provide comparisons of 2018 results with 2017 and with base years (2008 for numeracy, reading and conventions of language, and 2011 for writing).
All Australian education systems are moving to NAPLAN Online by 2020. Online testing provides more accurate and precise information about what students know and can do. This year, the first year of transition, around 20 per cent of students undertook NAPLAN online. In 2019, a larger percentage of students will undertake NAPLAN online, with the remainder sitting the paper assessments.
The NAPLAN summary results issued today include combined data for online and paper student cohorts.
ACARA Board: new Chair
ACARA’s CEO, Robert Randall, has welcomed the announcement of Ms Belinda Robinson as the new Chair of the ACARA Board.
“I look forward to working with Belinda as she applies her experience and expertise to ACARA’s mission to improve the learning of all young Australians,” said Mr Randall.
Ms Robinson brings extensive experience as a company director, senior policy advisor and chief executive of national peak bodies to the role. Most recently, she served for almost seven years as chief executive of Universities Australia, the peak body representing Australia’s university sector.
Ms Robinson has worked in a variety of senior and senior executive positions in state, local and federal governments, including eight years with the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet. She has served on a number of not-for-profit boards and advisory committees and is an experienced company director of listed and not-for-profit entities.
Assessment activities in schools
There are a number of assessment activities occurring in schools around Australia. These include:
PISA
30 July – 7 September. About 540,000 students across 72 countries.
Run in Australia by ACER, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial international survey that aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. Find out more about PISA.
School readiness testing
20 August – 12 October. Number of schools / number of students: final numbers determined by states and territories.
Schools intending to undertake NAPLAN online in 2019 can confirm their readiness through school readiness testing (SRT). SRT is an opportunity to test school technical infrastructure, test administration processes, procedures and logistics, connectivity, number of devices and bandwidth issues. SRT will use the 2018 assessment platform and will include an omnibus test that contain numeracy, reading and conventions of language items.
NAP sample (science literacy)
15 October – 2 November. Number of schools: 560. Number of students: 11,200.
The purpose of the test is to inform schools, educators and the community about the levels of achievement for science literacy among Year 6 and Year 10 students. All participating schools will receive reports summarising their students’ results, with a national public report of the outcomes released in 2019. A rigorous selection process is used to ensure the sample represents Australia’s Years 6 and 10 cohorts. The assessments are run by ACARA.
Platform readiness testing
22 October – 29 November. Number of schools / number of students: final numbers determined by states/territories.
States and territories will select schools to participate in platform readiness testing (PRT). PRT is a test of the performance of the NAPLAN Online platform and post-test processes, which includes monitoring, reporting and quality assurance. It follows on from the school readiness test. PRT is not a test of school readiness or of students’ literacy and numeracy skills.
