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The report, which confirms the findings of the preliminary NAPLAN results released in August, found improvement by students across all year levels in most domains.
ACARA CEO, Robert Randall, said there is also evidence of student movement from lower to higher bands of achievement over the last decade.
“There have been significant cumulative gains in some domains and year levels which were also identified within specific student groups since 2008,” Randall said.
However, Federal Education Minister, Simon Birmingham, cautioned that while there have been “pockets of improvement”, the report confirms the ‘mixed bag’ of results in the preliminary report.
“We know how vital literacy skills are to setting students up for life beyond school, so the decline in writing scores and the flat lining of reading results should act as a wake-up call that some changes are required,” Birmingham said.
The Australian Education Union (AEU) says the NAPLAN data released today adds to the growing body of evidence showing ongoing inequity is denying students from disadvantaged backgrounds the means to reach their full potential.
AEU federal president, Correna Haythorpe, said the results showed that Australia’s overall performance on the NAPLAN test had plateaued while critical gaps in student achievement remained.
“These results highlight the deep inequity in our school funding system. Students from low socio-economic backgrounds, Indigenous students and students in rural and remote communities bear the brunt of funding inequities,” Haythorpe said.
Good news for Indigenous student outcomes
The report showed gains for Indigenous students in reading, spelling, grammar, punctuation and numeracy, with Years 3, 5 and 7.
National chair of the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia (AHISA), Dr Mark Merry, welcomed the result but pointed out that opportunity gaps remain for Indigenous students in remote and rural areas and require “urgent attention”.
“AHISA members who are leading schools providing for Indigenous students stress that schools must be prepared to work with families, not just students, especially to address the issue of regular school attendance,’ Dr Merry said.
“The NAPLAN results are a clear reminder to governments that finding ways to create that flexibility while still keeping institutions accountable must be a priority.”
Students with a language background other than English (LBOTE) showed gains in reading (Years 3 and 5), grammar and punctuation (Years 3 and 7), spelling (Years 3 and 5) and numeracy (Year 5).
Female students performed significantly better than male students in writing, and grammar and punctuation across all year levels; and students with a language background other than English performed significantly better in spelling than their non-LBOTE peers across all year levels.
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