NAPLAN 2023: Australia’s worst-performing states and territories revealed

Some have emerged as star pupils, others have been told they must try harder. See how your state or territory stacks up in the latest NAPLAN test results.

Is your state or territory leading the way or lagging behind on key areas of student learning?

The results of the most recent round of NAPLAN testing have been published and paint a clear picture of how students around the country are tracking in their numeracy, grammar and punctuation, reading, spelling and writing.

The results show performance in all those areas for students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

The rankings are determined by comparing average NAPLAN scores for each state.

The testing was brought forward this year from May to March and the benchmarks for student achievement raised.

As the Herald Sun reported, from 2023 onwards, the 10 previous measures of NAPLAN performance have been replaced by just four bands; needs additional support, developing, strong, and exceeding.

The changes followed an independent review in 2020, which argued the minimum standards were not “challenging enough”.

So, did students in your state or territory rise to the challenge?

Read our wrap of the results for SA, Vic, QLD and NSW below.

To see results for all the states and territories, go here.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Students Joe Harrison, 15, and Jess Tran, 14 from Avenues College in Windsor Gardens sat the Year 9 NAPLAN test. Picture: Matt Turner

SA recorded improvements in its ranking against the other mainland states in six out of 20 categories in the latest NAPLAN testing, the Advertiser reported.

The biggest improvement was in Year 5 reading, with the state moving up from fifth to third.

It also saw gains in Year 3 (4th to 3rd) and in Year 7 reading (5th to 4th).

SA moved up one place in Year 3 spelling (4th to 3rd) and Year 7 spelling (5th to 4th).

The state also moved up one place in Year 5 writing from 5th to 4th place.

The only declines were in Year 9 spelling and grammar and punctuation with both falling back a place from 4th to 5th.

SA’s Education Minister Blair Boyer said improvements in reading, writing and spelling could be tied to the introduction in 2017 of a phonics check for Year 1 students.

As Lauren Novak reported, the check is based on a UK model and involves individually showing students up to 40 words, which they are asked to say aloud.

Half of the words are real and half are made up and the difficulty increases as the test progresses.

The check aims to determine whether children understand the sounds made by different letter combinations rather than just memorising the spelling of each word.

Read The Advertiser’s full coverage and explore SA’s full NAPLAN results

VICTORIA

Albanvale Primary School Principal Michael Uzunovski said his school was reaping the rewards of its investment in student excellence. Students from left to right. Hermela, 10, Karan, 10, Ana, 11, Lucas, 10, Ari, 11, Katrina, 11. Picture: Mark Stewart

Victorian students lead the country in Year 3 reading and numeracy, and writing in Years 5, 7 and 9, the latest NAPLAN results show.

But as the Herald Sun reported, the results trail off in later years with Victorian students slipping behind other states in numeracy, reading and spelling.

The results also show the full extent of student underperformance for the first time since testing began in 2008.
In some learning areas it was up to 10 times higher than previously reported.

For example, the new NAPLAN bands reveal 40 per cent of Year 43 and Year 9 students are now recognised as not meeting the standards for grammar and punctuation, a figure 10 times higher than the 4.6 to 11 per cent of students previously deemed to be below standard.

Across the state, 28.9 per cent of students were classified as needing additional support, or developing. The national average is 32.8 per cent.

Bayview College principal Dr Michelle Kearney said Covid had taken a “serious” social and emotional toll on Victorian pupuls and on “the scaffolding of learning”.

“If you can’t scaffold the learning fully with students in front of you, it’s easier for them to give up if they’re struggling,” Dr Kearney said.

An urgent plan by Federal Education Minister Jason Clare is expected to involve a national rollout of small group tutoring, the Herald Sun reported.

On the plus side, the number of Victorian students in the “exceeding” category (16.4 per cent) was better than the national average (15.1 per cent), but trailed behind NSW (17.6 per cent).

Read the Herald Sun’s full coverage and explore Victoria’s full NAPLAN results

QUEENSLAND

Queensland students are failing to meet basic national learning standards, the latest NAPLAN results show.

As the Courier Mail reported, almost one in five Year 9 students are falling short of the mark for writing, grammar and punctuation.

Younger students were also struggling to meet basic standards with the number of Year 3 students deemed as needing extra support sitting at 12 per cent, or higher, in four of the five learning areas tested by NAPLAN.

The worst was the number of Year 3 students needing extra support in grammar and punctuation which came in at 16.4 per cent.

In some cases, the Courier Mail reported, Queensland had double the number of students needing extra support than Victoria and NSW.

The state’s Year 7s struggled in key areas with almost 45 per cent of students deemed as needing extra support for writing and 35 per cent deemed as needing extra help or developing in the area of reading.

Queensland Year 9 students also had the worst NAPLAN participation rate in the country with one in five students not sitting the tests because they were absent or withdrawn by their parents. But it wasn’t all bad news.

Queensland’s Year 5 students outperformed other states in areas such as reading and spelling and coming close to the other states in grammar and punctuation.

And Year 7 students cam close to their counterparts interstate in numeracy, spelling and grammar and punctuation.

Read the Courier Mail’s full coverage and explore Queensland’s full NAPLAN results

NEW SOUTH WALES

Girls at Ravenswood, a private school on Sydney’s upper north shore, perform well above the state and national average. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Nearly one in three NSW students have failed to meet the national standards in literacy and maths, with grammar the worst of all, the latest NAPLAN results show.

In total, 30.1 per cent of students, from all the four year groups and five learning areas tested by NAPLAN, were classified as developing or in need of additional support.
The number of students flunking the test at each year level was highest in the area of grammar and punctuation and 40.8 per cent of Year 9 students fell into the bottom two categories in that subject, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Sydney University Professor of Linguistics Nick Enfield said the results were not surprising because computers, phones, social media and texting had changed the way young people used grammar.

“They induce new habits in users, and their “rules” are not really rules but more organic norms,” Prof Enfield explained.

Primary school students generally performed better across all the literacy tests, the results show, but fell away once students reached Year 9.

NSW Education Minister Prue Car said the government would create a literacy and numeracy tutoring program “to ensure all students can reach their potential”.

Read the Daily Telegraph’s full coverage and explore NSW’s full NAPLAN results

NORTHERN TERRITORY

Education Minister Eva Lawler and Education Department deputy chief executive Saeed Amin said NT students’ NAPLAN 2023 results were concerning but had a plan to improve the Territory’s report card. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

The high numbers of students living in remote, or very remote, areas contributed to the Territory’s poor NAPLAN performance, the NT News reported.

On the latest results, 35 per cent of NT students between Years 3-9 fell into the lowest performance band for 2023.

That figure rises to 57.8 per cent when combined with the number of students classified as developing, putting the Territory well behind the national average in all subject areas.

The biggest gap was in Year 3 spelling with the NT coming in 88.5 points behind the national average.

Just 6.5 per cent of students fell into the top band (exceeding).

Education Department deputy chief executive Saeed Amin told the NT News there were “strong reasons” why the Territory was underperforming.

“Fifty per cent of our students live in remote or very remote (areas) compared to two per cent nationally, and we also have twice as many students in the lowest quartile of social-economic advantage compared to the rest of Australia,” Mr Amin said.

“That means our results are always going to be a little bit behind the rest of the states.”

Education Minister Eva Lawler said bringing testing forward to March meant teachers could get a clear idea of which students needed extra support and could adjust their lesson plans according.

Ms Lawler said she had also been lobbying the Federal Government for extra funding to help put regional and remote schools on an equal footing with richer city schools.

Read the NT News’ full coverage and explore the Territory’s full NAPLAN results

TASMANIA

The performance of Tasmanian primary and secondary students has come under the microscope, with the 2023 NAPLAN testing results revealing how the island’s kids are faring compared to their interstate counterparts.

Tassie students have plenty of room for improvement with the latest NAPLAN results finding the Apple Isle lagging behind the national average in all key learning areas.

As the Hobart Mercury reported, Tasmania’s results, in all areas of the testing, were the second-worst in the country behind the Northern Territory.

Performance tended to be worse for students living outside of urban areas was generally among indigenous students compared to non-indigenous students, the Mercury reported.

On the measure of writing, 5.4 per cent of Year 3 students fell into the top category (exceeding), the majority (62.8 per cent) were classified as ‘strong’, 19.3 per cent fell into the ‘developing’ band and 10 per cent were classified as needing additional support.

The number of students ‘exceeding’ in writing at Year 9 level was higher (13.9 per cent) and girls performed better than boys 18.7 per cent to 9.2 per cent.

In spelling, 13.8 per cent of Year 5s were classed as exceeding and 45.3 per cent fell into the strong category, 25.6 per cent were classed as developing and 12.9 per cent were classified as needing additional support.

Read the Hobart Mercury’s full coverage and explore Tasmania’s full NAPLAN results

Originally published as NAPLAN 2023: Australia’s worst-performing states and territories revealed