NAPLAN — The National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy — is an annual assessment for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9.
This year saw a record number of students achieving the highest proficiency level, while the state also has the lowest rate of students needing additional support in Australia.
One local school, Tatura Primary School, has topped the class in primary education, seeing improvement “right across the board”.
The results came as no surprise to principal of 18 months Billy Barnes, who said the school had focused strongly on implementing the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0 (VTLM 2.0), a revised model announced in 2024 and being rolled out progressively from 2025 to 2027.
“We’ve made sure the learning plan is clear for students and teaching staff and put our time and energy into the right side of things,” Mr Barnes said.
“It’s good to see that hard work has paid off; a nice reward for the kids and celebration for staff to know what they’re doing is going in the right direction.”
The school’s Years 3 and 5 students achieved an improvement of 10 to 30 per cent across all of NAPLAN’s five testing domains, including reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and numeracy.
“It’s been an enjoyable learning process for all of us and a good review into the science of learning and how the brain ticks,” Mr Barnes said.
He said the school had worked hard on creating consistent routines, engaging kids in routine evidence-based learning and supporting its teachers with many opportunities for professional development.
The four core elements of learning in the VTLM 2.0 are:
- Attention, focus, and regulation
- Knowledge and memory
- Retention and recall
- Mastery and application
This year, 15.2 per cent of Year 9 Victorian students reached NAPLAN’s highest proficiency level, known as ‘exceeding’, in numeracy, up on last year.
For the same year level, more than a quarter reached the highest level in the writing domain, also more than in 2025.
“These results are outstanding — and they’re proof Victoria is the Education State leading the nation,“ Victorian Premier Ben Carroll said.
“Congratulations to our students, teachers and families.”
To view all of this year’s national NAPLAN results, visit: tinyurl.com/38zawsmx
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