How Victorian students performed in NAPLAN

Compare the surprise results of Victorian students in this year’s NAPLAN tests with all the other states. Full list for each year level.

Victorian kids, their parents and teachers have triumphed over the struggles of remote learning to top the nation in NAPLAN scores.

The state ranked first in all subjects across all year levels bar year 9 writing, results from the nationwide test conducted in May reveal.

Superstars include Victorian year 3 students with 99 per cent at or above the writing standard, compared to the national average of 96.9 per cent.

Other standouts include year 5s, whose results were at least two percentage points higher than the national average in all categories.

It comes despite Victorian students and their parents having endured up to 28 weeks of remote learning – more than any other state – since the pandemic began.

Preliminary results released on Wednesday show NAPLAN scores at a Victorian and national level have not been negatively affected by remote learning, with improvements in most literacy and numeracy outcomes compared to two years ago.

Their Blackburn North home often doubling as school, Jude, 6, Jasmine, 13, and Elijah, 10, are happy with Victoria’s NAPLAN results. Picture: Rebecca Michael

On average, kids have made gains equal to a term of learning, with parents teaching them for up to 40 per cent of the past 18 months.

After the national test was scrapped in 2020 due to the pandemic, more than 1.2 million students at 9000 schools sat the test in May, just weeks before Victoria was plunged into its fourth lockdown.

The state’s biggest improvements came in year 3 writing and year 5 reading.

The only area in which Victorian students aren’t the nation’s best is year 9 writing, with 86 per cent of students at or above standard compared with 87 per cent in WA. But Victoria exceeded the national average of 82 per cent.

Education Minister James Merlino told the Herald Sun he “could not be prouder” of the Victorian school community.

“From our expert, dedicated and passionate teachers and our resilient kids. To think about what they have gone through with months of remote learning … this just shows amazing resilience,” Mr Merlino said.

“Behind every statistic is a real person, a real child and that means 13,000 more kids excelling in reading, 8100 more kids getting those foundation skills in numeracy and literacy, this is just so exciting.”

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority chief David Carvalho said it was “reassuring to see that overall, our students’ literacy and numeracy standards have not significantly suffered, despite the major disruptions of Covid-19 and remote learning”.

“However, this does not mean there has been no impact on specific students or demographic groups,” he said.

“Generally, the average trend is positive, with improvements for year 3 and 5 reading and year 5, 7 and 9 numeracy, showing gains equivalent to a term’s worth of learning since the base year. The overall decline in writing has begun to flatten, and achievement in year 5, 7 and 9 has begun to reverse and show signs of an upward trend.”

Emily Gosbell, of Melbourne’s east, whose children Elijah in year 5 and Jasmine in year 7 undertook NAPLAN this year, said she wasn’t surprised by the results.

“I’m not surprised there wasn’t a drop in results as educators have been tirelessly working to support students in their learning despite the current challenges,” Ms Gosbell said.

Victorian Principals Association president Andrew Dalgleish said the results represented the “sensational work” students’ school leaders had done in the past year.

“This has shown outstanding resilience by our young people. It demonstrates academically our young people are still achieving despite the challenges they have encountered,” he said.

ACARA said individual students’ results would be available soon with school ­results to be published earlier next year.

By 2022, all NAPLAN tests will be conducted online.