NAPLAN results reveals Northern Territory’s most improved schools

ALAWA Primary School and Haileybury Rendall are among the Territory’s biggest improvers in NAPLAN testing, according to its latest data

Alawa Primary School students like Miguel Clarke, Asha Hughes and Elyssia Nicholas are among some of the big improvers in NAPLAN testing. Picture: Justin Kennedy

ALAWA Primary School and Haileybury Rendall are among the Territory’s biggest improvers in NAPLAN testing, according to its latest data.

Parents can now see just how their child’s school stacks up after the latest school-by-school data was released on the My School website today.

Seven Territory schools, including St John’s Catholic College, St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Alawa Primary School, Anula Primary School, Casuarina Street Primary School, Haileybury Rendall School and Palmerston Christian School, have been identified by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) as having achieved above average gains in 2018 NAPLAN testing.

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Alawa Primary School principal Sandy Cartwright said her school’s significant gains in reading performance from Years 3 to 5 were an encouraging sign the school was on the right track. We have worked really hard over the last four or five years in our improvement agenda at Alawa,” she said.

Ms Cartwright said the results indicate the school is producing “assessment capable learners”. “It doesn’t matter if it’s just reading or writing, it’s about the children developing as assessment capable learners.”

Haileybury Rendall principal Craig Glass said he was delighted with the result. “We were really rapt to see that improvement in only a short time teaching our students,” Mr Glass said. “To get those results after one term is fantastic and we are hoping to continue that growth as the years go by.”

The new My School data release comes just days after the 2018 NAPLAN National Report was made public.

The report, which details year-by-year data since NAPLAN testing began in 2008, revealed improvement in spelling, grammar, ready and numeracy across the Territory.

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Writing results across all year levels in the Territory, however, went backwards in that time, reflecting a broader decline in writing performance across the country.

Overall, data revealed that NT students continue to lag behind national benchmarks, with the Territory’s indigenous students falling below minimum national standards for reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy.