Victorian students have posted the biggest drops in NAPLAN results overall, but some schools shone
Victoria’s long lockdowns are likely to blame for the state’s students posting the biggest drops in Australia in NAPLAN tests.
Education
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Victorian students have posted the biggest drops in the nation in NAPLAN results, with major declines in three learning areas in the past year chalked up to Covid disruptions.
Victoria is the only state to have recorded “substantial decreases” in the past year, the national NAPLAN snapshot reveals.
The major slides in achievement were in year five numeracy and grammar and year nine spelling.
Australian Catholic University Professor of Education Claire Wyatt-Smith said: “When focusing on Victoria, it’s important to remember it had the longest lockdown of any state or territory in Australia.’’
Victorian students spent almost an entire year studying at home during 2020 and 2021 due to strict state lockdowns.
Jenni Rickard, president of the Australian Parents’ Council, said parents were “getting a better understanding every day of the effect of lockdowns on schooling”.
“The effect of disjointed learning is now being seen, not just in results but kids going back to school with heightened anxiety trying to cope with uncertainty,” she said.
The gender gap is also growing, with girls outperforming boys at every level and the difference stretching to 18 per cent in year nine spelling.
Boys only performed 1.3 per cent better than girls in year three numeracy.
The snapshot shows year nine writing is the lowest performing category in the state, with only 83.7 per cent of boys at or above minimum standard compared with 92.3 per cent of girls.
Professor Wyatt-Smith, who co-led a review of NAPLAN in 2019, said students by year nine were “bored and disengaged from this assessment”.
An analysis shows that as children have moved from year three in 2016 to year nine in 2022, there has been a 9 per cent fall in the number meeting or exceeding minimum standards in writing, despite huge increases in funding.
Children went from 96 per cent at or above standard in year three writing to 87 per cent by the time they reached year nine. Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said national results were better than expected given Covid was the “biggest disruption in decades”.
“This shows that in most areas the results were the same as before the pandemic,” he said.
Despite the serious falls in standards, Victoria is still among the better performing states across most measures, and Education Minister Natalie Hutchins said the results were “a tribute to the amazing efforts of Victorian students and their teachers, principals, parents and carers”.
“Victoria is again one of the top performing jurisdictions in NAPLAN this year – I’m so proud our year three students achieved the best reading results ever and ranked first in the country for both reading and numeracy,” she said.
Nationally, boys are performing worse than girls in literacy and maths across most year levels compared with 2021. Both boys and girls have shown small reading improvements since 2008.
But the biggest gap was between male and female year nines, with 93 per cent of girls at or above national minimum standard this year, and boys trailing at 86 per cent.
Numeracy skills across both genders have taken a hit since 2008, when 95 per cent of year seven students met minimum standards. Broader trends show that year 3 writing skills have made little or no improvement since 2008.
Writing scores for students from years 5 to 9 have continued to improve notably since marks last trended downwards in 2018. Spelling results for girls in years three, seven and nine remained stagnant during the same period.
Maths results for girls have also begun to flatten across most years after trending up in recent years, but continued to show improvement among year seven students.
It comes after overall participation in the national assessment fell in recent years, and Victoria had one of the biggest falls in participation in year three reading since 2021.
Almost 5000 fewer Victorian year three students were not assessed for writing, contributing to almost half of the national shortfall in 2022.
Senior education lecturer at Deakin University, Carly Sawatzki, said NAPLAN was not the only indicator of a child’s education following the lockdowns.
“Parents and professional educators are getting on with supporting students to reconnect socially and reconnect with their schooling, “ she said. “NAPLAN results are probably not the best measure of this challenging work.
“Targeted, research-informed interventions are needed to support mathematics teachers to find where students are up to, help them get back on track, and inspire them to continue learning mathematics.”
Premier Daniel Andrews said the past couple of years had been “very challenging” but stopped short of saying remote learning contributed to the major declines in three learning areas.
“We know and understand, like so many families across the state, that it’s been a unique period,” Mr Andrews said.
“It’s been really, really challenging.
“I want to congratulate and thank parents and students, teachers and the support staff … for all that they’ve done.
“We shouldn’t skate over the good part of those NAPLAN results.
“There are some very strong results there but there are also areas where we have to do better.”
The Premier said thousands of tutors working in Victorian government schools were giving children “one-on-one attention” in an effort to get them back up to speed.
“Individual attention has never been more important than it is now and that’s why we’re proudly delivering it.”
Altona North Catholic Primary shows how great it really is
Reading and numeracy scores at Altona North’s St Leo the Great Catholic Primary School have gone from strength to strength since 2016.
Consistent improvement for students in years 3 and 5 in mathematics has seen the percentage of students reaching minimum standards spike seven per cent over the past five years.
Principal James Ryan said the scores showed that students remained undeterred by the looming threat of lockdowns and remote learning during the pandemic.
“Despite the challenges of the past three years, our students remain resilient,” he said.
“Their ongoing learning is evident in many ways, including through pleasing NAPLAN results.
“During the pandemic, our teachers have been building stronger relationships with parents, every child’s first educators, and this inspires a collaborative, family effort.”
Mr Ryan said the school would use this year’s scores to drive up results in other learning areas.
Fifty-seven per cent of grade 3 and 5 students at St Leo’s met or exceeded national standards in 2016, which dropped to 54 per cent in 2021.
“We will do a thorough analysis of our results to help inform where our energies need to be focused to ensure all students are given every opportunity to reach their full potential.
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