Most improved Illawarra NAPLAN schools in last 5 years revealed

The biggest NAPLAN improvers for schools in the Illawarra region have been revealed along with the schools which have gone backwards.

Dylan Arvela

@dylanarvela

2 min read

November 30, 2022 - 5:00AM

Illawarra Star

Farmborough Road Public School has had a marked improvement in NAPLAN results in the last five years. Principal Michelle Wells, pictured with students Alexa Sandison, Angus Page, Evan Vlaski and Alex Vlaski, described the tests as a “tool” to help guide teachers. Picture: Supplied

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An independent analysis of NAPLAN data over the past five years has revealed the big improvers across the Illawarra, with Farmborough Road Public School in Unanderra topping the charts for Year 5 with a marked 7.69 per cent improvement.

Mount Kembla Public School (7.42 per cent), Unanderra’s St Pius X Catholic Primary School (7.37 per cent), and Stanwell Park Public School (7.06 per cent) also achieved improvements in excess of 7 per cent.

Farmborough Road principal Michelle Wells said she was “extremely proud” of her students’ “great improvements” in recent years and credited the upturn to the” exceptional work her outstanding teachers and leaders do every day”.

Ms Wells emphasised her teachers don’t “teach to a test”. However, they use the NAPLAN results as a “tool to measure the school’s progress”, labelling it as” just a snapshot of one assessment on one day in the year”.

“NAPLAN measures literacy and numeracy results for a select group of Year 3 and 5 students in our school,” she said.

“It doesn’t measure how a student has learned to self-regulate their emotions and behaviour.

“While it is not easy to measure these other successes, we see these as vitally important to our children [because] we want to develop lifelong learners in all aspects of life.”

As for Year 9, Illawarra Sports High School in Berkeley recorded the most significant improvement in the Illawarra, with results increasing by 1.85 per cent over the past five years.

Cedars Christian College (1.8 per cent), Shellharbour Anglican College (1.76 per cent), Smith’s Hill High School (1.63 per cent), and Bulli High School (1.54 per cent) rounded out the region’s top five improvers in the Year 9 bracket.

Illawarra Sports High School principal Gary Hampton highlighted a tailored learning program, dubbed RAN (reading and numeracy), implemented in 2020 as a key reason for the school’s improvement.

Illawarra Sports High School Year 10 Students (left to right) Caitlyn Yeaman, Emily Thomas, Summer Waine and Lily Scott. Picture: Supplied

“The program runs across the school faculties and Year 7 to 10 groups, and it has changed the way literacy and numeracy is delivered across all key learning areas,” Mr Hampton told NewsLocal.

“Staff across the school meet fortnightly in a timetabled period in small cross-KLA (key learning areas) groups to collaborate on specific focus areas and review student work samples to improve learning outcomes. The collaboration by staff gives consistency to learning for students in that year group.

“For instance, we identified that more work needed to be done in the area of inferential comprehension. Data showed that while our students were good at reading, they needed to further develop their understanding of the material they were reading.

“By focusing on improving inferential comprehension in each subject area and sharing the strategies, we were able to improve the depth of student learning across the school.”

Illawarra Sports High School principal Gary Hampton put the improvement down to a tailored learning program implemented in 2020. Picture: Supplied

The analysis compared the five year change in NAPLAN results from 2017 and 2021 and revealed the schools which have improved their Year 5 and Year 9 student scores the most.

It was calculated by each school‘s combined results for each NAPLAN subject in 2017 and compared to the same results in 2021.