The northern suburbs top-performing NAPLAN schools of past five years revealed
We’ve broken down the Naplan data to reveal the schools who aced the national school standards test. See every school in the northern suburbs, plus one head teacher shares his tips on acing the test.
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Which schools in Melbourne’s north are consistently head of the class in NAPLAN results?
A News Corp Australia analysis of five years of the national test results has revealed the strong performers in the Years 5 and 9 tests between 2014 and 2018.
Over that five-year period Penleigh and Essendon Grammar, in Keilor East had higher Year 5 yearly results than any other school in the region, followed by Preston West Primary School.
The top performing schools in Melbourne’s north for Year 9s were Penleigh and Essendon Grammar and Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School, where Years 7-9 head of curriculum Rob Fuller said the girls took the test very seriously.
“We don’t teach to the test, because if you try to do that you’re just going to get skewed results,” he said.
“They’re just good students who want to do well and read widely.”
Mr Fuller noted the independent school was not selective and no students were excluded from sitting the NAPLAN.
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“The test gives us a lot of data, which we can use to inform our teaching, make sure the students are on track and where they should be,” he said.
“It’s suitable for what it sets out to do.”
To find out how schools performed between 2014 and 2018, News Corp Australia combined each school’s average scores for each year and calculated a yearly average.
The 2019 results are not publicly available yet.
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Special schools, schools with fewer than 20 students enrolled during those years, and schools that did not report any results for NAPLAN subjects were excluded from the analysis.
A Federal Department of Education spokesman said the NAPLAN was an important measure as it told Australians at national, state and territory levels how well the nation was equipping students with critical literacy and numeracy skills.
“NAPLAN is not designed to compare individual students, but rather enable teachers to identify and focus on specific areas to improve individual student achievement and to potentially adjust their teaching emphasis,” the spokesman said.
NORTHERN MELBOURNE’S BEST PERFORMING YEAR 5 SCHOOLS 2014-18
1. Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School, Keilor East
2. Preston West Primary School
3. Merri Creek Primary School, Fitzroy North
4. Banyule Primary School, Rosanna
5. Ivanhoe Primary School
6. Alphington Primary School
7. Westgarth Primary School, Northcote
8. Clifton Hill Primary School
9. Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School
10. Ivanhoe East Primary School
NORTHERN MELBOURNE’S BEST PERFORMING YEAR 9 SCHOOLS 2014-18
1. Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School, Keilor East
2. Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School
3. Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School, Essendon
4. University High School, Parkville
5. Ivanhoe Grammar School
6. Glenvale School, Broadmeadows
7. Braemar College, Woodend
8. Eltham College
9. Northcote High School
10. St Columba’s College, Essendon