Independent schools dominate Gold Coast NAPLAN results

INDEPENDENT schools dominated the Year 3 and Year 9 sections of this year’s NAPLAN school exams, claiming all but one of the top five spots. Did your school make the grade?

Year 3 students Elie Kim 8, Jasmine Morris, 8, and Teegan Mitchell, 8, are happy with the results. Picture Glenn Hampson

INDEPENDENT schools dominated the Year 3 and Year 9 sections of this year’s NAPLAN school exams, claiming all but one of the top five spots.

A B Paterson College, St Hilda’s School, King’s Christian College and Coomera Anglican College were among the top schools when scores for reading, writing, spelling, grammar/punctuation and numeracy were totalled in Year 3.

The only state school in the top five was Broadbeach State School, which placed second last year.

A.B. Paterson College did really well in NAPLAN results. Picture: Glenn Hampson

Among the Year 9 totals, Somerset College, All Saints Anglican, Emmanuel, St Hilda’s and A B Paterson filled the top five placings. It was the same order as last year.

A.B. Paterson College principal Brian Grimes said his school had worked hard on developing specific programs to improve literacy and numeracy.

“One of the things we’ve worked on is using data ... to take results and map how students are going and see how effective the program is,” Mr Grimes said.

Miami State High School pushed into the top 20 this year. Photo: Jessica Huxley

He said the school had focused on three things: staff training, targeted learning for all students and developing speci alised programs beginning in prep.

Across the exam domains, which include reading, writing, spelling, grammar/punctuation and numeracy across Years 3, 5, 7 and 9, the school had achieved a 100 per cent rate of performing above the national minimum standard in 15 of those areas.

Somerset College ranked first in the Queensland NAPLAN tests for secondary schools.

“To me NAPLAN is an important diagnostic and reflective tool, it’s not the sole measure of ... a school’s achievement,” he said.

Somerset College deputy headmaster Dr Michael Brohier said his school’s results could be credited to normalising literacy and numeracy skills into the general curriculum.

“What we do is we don’t focus on worrying about NAPLAN,” Dr Brohier said.

“We focus on teaching and learning as we go in there and do it well, and they’re less stressed.

“It’s normalised. We embed literacy and numeracy into our general curriculum.”

King's Christian College ranked high in the Year 3 NAPLAN tests. Picture: Lisa Clarke

Dr Brohier said Year 3 and 5 went from strength to strength, but their Years 7 and 9 did “exceptionally well.”

“(Our Year 9 classes) were second in the state for writing, fifth in numeracy, ninth in reading, eighth for spelling and 13th for grammar,” he said.

Overall, Queensland posted some of its best-ever NAPLAN results, but Year 7 and 9 writing skills recorded lower results.

Professor and Dean of Griffith University Donna Pendergast said the idea behind NAPLAN was to set an appropriate benchmark and to use it as a diagnostic tool.

“I think that the writing is a challenge that everyone’s grappling with,” she said.

“When I talk to literary experts, (the lower scores) potentially have to do with that we’ve changed what we teach in schools ... with the types of writing (learned) not reflected in tests.

“This is a really powerful tool but it only measures literacy and numeracy in narrow areas.

“As educators we’re keen to know what others are, like interpersonal skills of resilience ... it’s not the be all and end all.”

She said schools could improve with an intense strategy to writing, which schools scoring well in writing at NAPLAN were likely already doing.