Ranked: How every Gold Coast school performed in Naplan

An independent analysis of five years of NAPLAN results has revealed the Gold schools which consistently performed the best. SEE HOW YOUR SCHOOL FARED - CHECK OUR FULL LIST

A Gold Coast school where students work “in partnership” with staff has recorded extraordinary success in NAPLAN testing – achieving the best results in the city at both primary and secondary level.

An independent analysis of five years of results from the annual national assessment of literacy and numeracy has revealed Somerset College consistently performed the best in both Year 5 and Year 9 tests between 2017 and 2021.

Headmaster Craig Bassingthwaighte said the Mudgeeraba school had “high expectations”, but students loved attending due to its spirit of partnership.

“We share high expectations with our students and we deal with those high expectations compassionately,” Mr Bassingthwaighte said.

“We’re very committed to personal success, whatever that looks like for any student.

“What I love about our Somerset students is they understand what we’re trying to achieve with them.

“They give us very good feedback about things that are working well, and also things that they would like to see changed.

“And we really appreciate that. We do very much regard it as a partnership.”

Somerset College Headmaster Craig Bassingthwaighte with students Isabella Seymour (Vice Captain, 2023), Hannah Zubair (Performing Arts Captain, 2023) and Joshua Cotton (House Captain – Andrews, 2023).

Mr Bassingthwaighte said the school’s approach to NAPLAN was to ensure students felt comfortable and had no reason to feel stressed, saying its value lay in the lessons that could be learned from the results.

“We do very little direct preparation,” he said. “We want the students to feel comfortable and feel that they’re not seeing anything on the day that they haven’t seen before.

“But that’s basically all we do.

“The other thing we do is that when we do have the results we do sort of follow up with some feedback about those results.

“We do take it very much as it’s meant to be taken, which is something to help the students understand their strengths, but then also some areas where they could put in a little more work.”

Somerset College Headmaster Craig Bassingthwaighte in his office at the school.

Mr Bassingthwaighte, who is in his fourteenth year as Headmaster at the 1500-pupil school, also paid tribute to his “inspiring” teaching staff.

“Our students are enthusiastic, they’re glad to be here, and so are our teachers. And when that is happening, I’ve got very little work to do,” he said.

“The teachers here at Somerset are very professional, they’re very engaged, and they’re inspiring.”

The figures, which were independently compiled from the Federal Government’s MySchool website, showed that at Year 5 level The Southport School achieved the second best results with an average score of 2688.0, behind Somerset’s 2707.3.

A B Paterson College in Arundel was the third best with an average score of 2685.0.

With a score of 2655.0, the next best school was 116-pupil Beechmont State School, proving that being small is no impediment to great outcomes.

One of the Gold Coast’s biggest state primary schools also made the top ten, however.

Broadbeach State School, which has 1145 pupils from prep to Year 10, appeared at seventh place on the list with a score of 2634.8.

Broadbeach State School principal Bruce Langes earlier this year told the Bulletin he was very proud of its hard-working students and teachers.

“As a school we are proud of our all our students and their outstanding NAPLAN results. We congratulate them for their success and hard work the show every day,” Mr Lange said.

Graduating Year 12 students are honoured with a final school war cry on the oval at St Hilda's in Southport on Friday November 18, 2022. St Hilda’s was among the best performing schools on the Gold Coast in NAPLAN results at both Year 5 and Year 9 level.

At Year 9 level, Somerset’s average yearly result was 3154.3 over the five years.

All Saints Anglican School in Merrimac was second best on the Gold Coast with an average score of 3092.5.

A B Paterson College in Arundel, which also took out third sport at Year 5 level, was third best with an average score of 3088.5.

Also among the top performing schools were Emmanuel College in Carrara and St Hilda's School in Southport, which both also featured in the top ten at Year 5 and Year 9 level.

To determine how each school performed between 2017 and 2021, their average NAPLAN scores for each year were combined and the yearly average found.

Special schools, schools with fewer than 20 students enrolled in either year, and schools that did not report any results for NAPLAN subjects in either year were excluded from the analysis.

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