Victorian high school students fail to improve in reading or numeracy
Victorian students are struggling to improve at school, with youngsters starting off as the brightest in the nation but dropping the ball in high school. See which year levels scored the best and worst in the latest NAPLAN testing results.
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Victoria’s high school students have failed to make any statistical improvement in reading or numeracy in a decade.
The NAPLAN national report released today shows the state’s students are struggling to improve, with youngsters starting off as the brightest in the nation but dropping the ball in high school.
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In a decade of NAPLAN testing, Victoria’s year 7 and 9 students showed no statistical difference in their results since 2008.
Grade 5 students had improved the most, achieving reading and numeracy results that were above and statistically significant to the decade earlier, while there was also an improvement in grade 3 reading.
Victoria’s grade 3 and 5 students earned first or second place in every academic category nationwide last year.
But those results dwindled in year 7, then fell in year 9 to third place in reading, writing, numeracy, grammar and punctuation, and fourth place in spelling.
Year 7 students’ reading gains across two years were significantly lower than the national gain.
And when following primary school students’ progress across four and six years to high school, Victorian pupils had among the lowest gains in reading and numeracy.
While improvements did lag towards the senior years nationwide, Victoria’s gains slowed the most.
The latest data set confirms preliminary figures released in August, showing that while primary students were taking the top spot in half of NAPLAN testing areas, writing skills had dropped in every year level in a national decline.
Meanwhile, a trend has emerged in remote Victoria.
While remote students typically earned lower scores to their city counterparts, year 9 remote Victorian students beat their metro equivalents in every category.
Remote year 9 kids showed the greatest difference in reading, beating metro Melbourne students by more than 20 points, and in writing by 12 points.
Participation in NAPLAN is falling for every tested grade but year 7 in Victoria. One in 10 students in year 9 did not take part last year.
And of 68 substantiated incidents of cheating and security breaches, just eight were in Victoria.
Six schools posted pictures of students sitting the test, while results were withheld for two students at one Victorian school after unauthorised materials were brought into the test rooms.
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