The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) results have become a focal point for parents and educators alike since the recent updates in 2023. The testing format shifted, and with that shift came a reset of the measurement scales. This dramatic change makes it disorienting to review results from one year to the next. To create that picture, ACARA CEO, Stephen Gniel, underscores the importance of not just focusing on test score results alone. This method goes a long way in creating a full-faceted picture of how a school is performing.
Like it or not, for millions of Australian parents, the NAPLAN results are the main benchmark they use to judge the quality of a school. Unfortunately, experts say that consumers need to be wary when using these scores. ACARA made the decision to adopt the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA). By accounting for the average educational backgrounds of students at each school, this tool makes it possible to compare schools more fairly. This context is important in making sure that assessments measure true education quality instead of false, Best-in-Show standings.
The Shift in NAPLAN Reporting
Since the 2023 NAPLAN results, the reporting of results has shifted towards using a scale of four proficiency levels instead of employing numerical scores. Nationally, this change is an important step toward giving a more holistic picture of student success across multiple measures. Parents can find out more about nearly 10,000 Australian schools including detailed schools profiles through the My School portal. This new platform features up-to-date results as well as long-term historical baselines and trends over time.
The portal features a specific section that allows users to view progress over the last two years through graphical representations. This approach helps parents grasp how students have fared over time rather than fixating on isolated data points from a single test.
“It’s not everything about a school. And we always sort of say that.” – Stephen Gniel
Gniel encourages parents to look beyond one thing to judge school success. He notes that the NAPLAN data is extremely helpful. In doing so, they lose sight of the larger story of a student’s educational journey. The portal’s robust profile pages provide helpful context to further illustrate and explain what makes some schools so successful at producing certain outcomes.
The Role of Socio-Economic Factors
As he points out, the research shows that most of the variation in how well students perform is due to factors beyond the school environment. Pasi Sahlberg, a professor in educational leadership at the University of Melbourne, highlights this issue, stating that “most variation in student scores is explained by factors outside the school, especially socio-economic background, family resources, and broader community conditions.”
Under this view, standardized tests like NAPLAN can’t be trusted to be valid measures of school quality. Sahlberg calls for caution in interpreting these results and for using them as the only basis to form judgments about educational systems and their institutions.
“Most variation in student scores is explained by factors outside the school.” – Pasi Sahlberg
Here, Dr Fiona Longmuir from Monash University tells us why this is crucial. She wants parents to avoid panicking and making snap judgments based only on those color-coded results in the My School portal. She’s encouraging families to think deeply about how these pieces fit together. It’s important to understand what they mean.
“My advice to parents is to be really thoughtful about how those results are coming together and what they actually mean.” – Dr Fiona Longmuir
Encouraging Involvement and Support
Through advocacy and active engagement, Gniel wants parents to feel empowered to be agents of educational change. To accomplish this, he calls on families to partner with their kids’ schools. When schools engage youth by building genuine, trusting and respectful relationships with teachers and staff, they can achieve immensely transformational educational outcomes.
“If families and parents want their kids to go to a great school, I would advise them to get in and partner with their school.” – Stephen Gniel
He argues that the real solution in education comes from productive partnerships between schools and the families they serve. It’s not about how well they stack up against the rest of the world on standardized tests, but more on how we help them grow and thrive.
“I always encourage people to go in and then help and see what you can do to support the school.” – Stephen Gniel
