NAPLAN Results 2025: Every Geelong and Surf Coast school ranked
A tiny Bellarine primary school has delivered a shock blow to Geelong's elite private schools by claiming the region's top NAPLAN ranking.
Small-town Queenscliff Primary School has outperformed Geelong’s most prestigious private schools to claim the region’s top NAPLAN ranking, while Kardinia International College has defended its secondary school crown for the third consecutive year.
An independent analysis of newly released 2025 NAPLAN results has revealed the schools which performed the best in the year 5 and 9 tests.
Government schools have stunned Geelong’s education establishment by claiming the top three spots among primary school, while the region’s elite private schools have come out on top once again among high schools.
The 2025 NAPLAN results were released on the My School website on Wednesday.
To determine how each school performed, the scores for all five test subjects for the student cohort were combined and the average found.
Those five subjects are reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy.
Kardinia International College posted an average of 629.4, sitting on top of the local secondary school list comfortably, almost 20 points ahead of its closest competitor.
Geelong Grammar came in second with a year 9 average of 606, followed by The Geelong College (586.2) and Geelong Lutheran College (586.2).
Among government schools, Apollo Bay P-12 College achieved the highest year 9 average, with a score of 582.2.
This was the same score as the region’s top Catholic school, Sacred Heart College, the two sharing fifth place in Greater Geelong’s rankings.
At Kardinia International College Kath O’Neill senior school head said the school was “rapt” with their NAPLAN results, and looking forward to sitting down with staff to analyse the results.
“We’re always really happy with our NAPLAN results, we’re regularly recognised for it,” she said.
“I think it’s a reflection of our culture of learning, kids here just really value learning and it shows.
“NAPLAN is not the be all and end all, but we use it to look at trends, to see if there are gaps in our teaching.
“It helps inform targeted teaching.
Queenscliff Primary School topped the local list for primary schools, with a year 5 average of 534.4.
The Bellarine school achieved well-above average results for both reading (544) and grammar (551).
Wildcard Highton Primary School (531.8) followed in second place, a massive jump from its 2024 ranking of 33.
Torquay Coast Primary School (526.8) came in third, another leap from 2024, when it ranked 15th in the region.
This year the Surf Coast school achieved the region’s highest reading results, at 546.
Meanwhile, other 2024 top ranking primary schools let their results slip.
Geelong Grammar, last year’s top-ranked, saw a three per cent drop in its 2025 year 5 average (519.2), placing it ninth in the region.
Queencliff Primary School principal Mat McRae said the school was mostly “incredibly proud” of the results, and noted no student was falling behind.
Year 5 teachers Yvette Hurley and Jackie Morris said it was “incredible” to see the “tireless” work of staff had paid off.
“We’ve worked hard so every child feels successful and confident,” Ms Morris said.
Ms Hurley said the results were “very validating”.
“We know our students and we pick up those on who need extra help early,” she said.
“Teachers run regular assessments so we’re constantly tracking growth.
“If a student isn’t progressing, we meet to work out what’s happening and put further strategies in place so they don’t fall behind.”
Special schools, schools with fewer than 20 students enrolled, and schools that did not report any results for NAPLAN subjects were excluded from the analysis.
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Originally published as NAPLAN Results 2025: Every Geelong and Surf Coast school ranked
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