Top schools: Principals share secrets to NAPLAN wins

The principals of Queensland’s top performing schools in this year’s NAPLAN have revealed the keys to their spectacular results.

THE leaders of Queensland’s top performing NAPLAN schools have revealed what they believe has been the key factors to their success.

St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School in Ascot has emerged as the star performer for primary school children, while Brisbane Girls Grammar School once again took out the No. 1 spot for high school students.

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St Margaret’s Principal Ros Curtis said she was very proud of what the students and staff had achieved in its 2019 NAPLAN results, which were released Wednesday by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority.

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She said she believed one of the key elements to the school’s success had been an “explicit teaching of the foundational skills of learning – literacy and numeracy”.

“We fundamentally believe that all subjects benefit from strengths in those areas,” she said.

“We’ve done that by increasing teaching time for literacy and numeracy, both in the primary school and in the lower secondary school.”

St Margaret's Anglican Girls School students Isobel Stobie, Jasmine Moody, Mia Vidler, Eva Williams, Penelope Cronin and Charlie Morgans. Picture: Lachie Millard

Ms Curtis said the school doesn’t do extensive preparation specifically for NAPLAN, and said she doesn’t consider it “high-stakes” testing.

“I believe NAPLAN provides really important information to teachers about the strength of their program, and how their students are travelling,” she said.

“There is some test preparation, but the best preparation is what they do every day in the classroom – that’s really important.”

Brisbane Girls Grammar School students Eva Lusk and Aily Chang. Picture: Nigel Hallett

Brisbane Girls Grammar School Principal Jacinda Euler said she believed one of the reasons for the school’s consistently high-performance in NAPLAN and other academic results was developing “a love of learning”, along with “the ability to think critically”.

“As an academically non-selective school that awards no scholarships, these results highlight the expertise and care of our teachers and the positive learning environment at Girls Grammar,” Ms Euler said.

“Our girls are taught to think deeply and to think for themselves, and this is reflected not only in their NAPLAN results, but also in how they learn and respond to the world in which they live.”