Naplan scores reveal thousands of Year 9 students at risk of failing to gain the HSC

NSW students are stellar spellers and masters of maths but their writing skills have slipped over the past decade, the latest national testing shows.

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NSW students are stellar spellers and masters of maths but their writing skills have slipped over the past decade, the latest national testing shows.

The results reveal that 60 per cent of Year 9 students risk flunking the HSC unless they knuckle down to improve their literacy and numeracy results in the final three years of high school.

A back-to-basics focus on phonics helped Year 3 students excel in literacy in this year’s test.

And Year 9 students topped the nation in numeracy, with 11.1 per cent getting the best marks in the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (Naplan) test.

High school students sitting a literacy test.

High school students from NSW were twice as likely as Queensland kids to score top marks in maths.

But one-in-seven students from NSW flunked the Year 9 writing test and 10 per cent failed to meet the minimum national standard for grammar and punctuation.

Only 4.8 per cent of Year 7s achieved top marks in writing compared with 16.7 per cent of Year 3 students.

Literacy standards among high school students have slipped since Naplan tests began in 2008, with the proportion of Year 9 students failing to meet the minimum standard rising from 5.6 per cent to 6.6 per cent for reading, and from 7.8 per cent to 8.2 per cent for spelling.

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership chairman John Hattie said it was vital that children mastered basic literacy skills before the end of Year 3.

“If you don’t have sufficient skills in reading and writing by the age of eight you’ll never catch up,’’ he said.

“Quality teaching is what makes the difference — you don’t learn to read by osmosis.’’

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said her government was boosting “back to basics’’ teaching of literacy and numeracy.

“Overall, NSW students scored above the national average and rank in the top three for all tests in all year levels,’’ she said.

NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian.

Ms Berejiklian said the introduction of minimum standards for literacy and numeracy in order to pass the HSC from 2020 had improved Year 9 performance this year.

Students who score at least a band 8 in reading, writing and numeracy in Year 9 Naplan will be exempt from the new online tests required to pass Year 12.

This year, two-thirds of Year 9 students achieved the Naplan target in one field but only one third achieved top scores in all three subject areas.

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham said NSW students had improved their average Naplan scores from last year by 1.15 per cent in reading, by 0.48 per cent in writing and by 1.27 per cent in numeracy.

Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham.

He said the federal government was improving teacher standards, putting more focus on “back to basics’’ literacy and numeracy.

More than one million students in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9 sat the test across Australia in May.

Individual student results will be sent to parents next month.

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