NAPLAN is the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy. Put simply, it's an Australian standardised test for maths and English.
But where did it come from? Who came up with it? Who has to do it? And why?
We have the answers to these questions (and much more) in our brief history of NAPLAN.
When Did NAPLAN Start in Australia?
Though NAPLAN was introduced in 2008, the story of NAPLAN goes back a bit further than that. The tests were initially part of a cooperation between Australian ministers in 1999 who put together the Adelaide declaration on national goals for schooling in the 21st century, which basically set out to make Australian education better for everyone.
This included collaborating with indigenous experts to create the tests and ensuring that they were fairly suitable for any student in Australia.
NAPLAN wasn't immediately popular and it still remains somewhat controversial. There have even been calls for it to be dropped ever since it was introduced.
Who Founded NAPLAN?
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) administers the tests and has done so since 2010. However, ACARA didn't administer the initial tests, which came about through the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA).
Is NAPLAN just in Australia?
Naturally, a "National Assessment Program" would be confined to just one country, but that doesn't mean that NAPLAN is completely unique.
NAPLAN itself is only in Australia, but New Zealand did have a NAPLAN equivalent called "National Standards". These were scrapped after they were seen to be a "distraction" that took away from teaching and educators were focusing too much on the results of the testing itself rather than the underlying education, criticisms that have also been levelled at NAPLAN.
Is NAPLAN based on the Australian Curriculum?
During the time that NAPLAN has been part of Australian education, it hasn't remained the same and has had to be changed and adapted to make it a worthwhile part of the country's education.
One such change was in 2016 when NAPLAN testing was aligned with the Australian Curriculum: English and the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics. Before 2016, NAPLAN tests were based on “Statements of Learning” for English and maths.
After all, NAPLAN is supposed to be a gauge of how students across the country are performing in terms of literacy and numeracy, which should be outlined in the curricula for these areas. Testing students on areas outside of these just means that students would either be tested on topics that they weren't necessarily being taught or have to prepare specifically for the tests themselves, which many would consider a waste of time.
What Years Do NAPLAN in Australia?
NAPLAN tests take place annually, but only assess students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. With the youngest students being either eight or nine years old, there are concerns that they may be too young to be taking standardised tests and some parents and educators even question the value of NAPLAN for such young pupils.
At such a young age, the tests shouldn't be a source of stress and should certainly just be used to set down the marker by which their own progression can be gauged in subsequent years. In total, there are about 3 hours of testing across the four tests that make up the NAPLAN tests in Year 3 so it'll likely be the longest tests they've taken thus far, but they're across several days and aren't pass or fail.
Does Everyone in Australia Do NAPLAN?
NAPLAN tests are nationwide and every student in Australia in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 is expected to take these tests.
However, parents, carers, or guardians do reserve the right to withdraw their child from the testing. To do so, they'll need to speak to their child's school and put in a formal application to the relevant authority before testing begins.
Who Is Exempt from NAPLAN?
There are also exemptions for students with disabilities or students without English language proficiency who've been in the school for less than a year. That said, these students are still encouraged to take the tests if they can and there are special adjustments available for them to help them take NAPLAN tests. After all, the tests are a gauge of numeracy and literacy so could still be useful for tracking a child's progress.
Children can be withdrawn from the NAPLAN tests, too. The parents, carers, or guardians just need to speak to the school to sort it out.
What is the Highest Band in NAPLAN?
NAPLAN tests have students placed into an "Assessment Scale" which uses "Bands" to indicate performance.
The bands are numbered, but the numbers are not consistent across the various years, which means the top band for Year 3 is not the same as the top band for year 9.
Year 3 Assessment Scale
Students in year 3 will be in bands numbered 1 to 6. The lowest band, Band 1, is considered to be below the national minimum standard. Band 2 is the national minimum standard.
Bands 3 to 6 are all above the national minimum standard and overlap with the lower bands of the subsequent assessments.
Year 5 Assessment Scale
The Year 5 Assessment Scale goes from Band 3 to Band 8. The lowest band is below the national minimum standard and the second lowest is the national minimum standard.
Again, these bands share some overlap with the previous assessments and the subsequent assessments.
Year 7 Assessment Scale
Year 7 pupils are placed into bands from Band 4 to Band 9. Band 4 is below the national minimum standard, Band 5 is the national minimum standard, and every other band is above the national minimum standard.
Year 9 Assessment Scale
Finally, the year 9 assessment scale is from 5 to 10. The same rules apply with the lowest being below the minimum standard, the second lowest being the minimum standard, and Bands 7 to 10 being above the national minimum standard.
Can You Fail NAPLAN?
NAPLAN doesn't do "pass" or "fail", but the students are still being graded and though they call it an "Assessment Scale" and put students into "Bands", these could have just as easily been labelled grades and being below the national minimum standard could have easily been classified as a "fail", too.
Renaming how children are assessed doesn't really fool anyone and schools, parents, and the children themselves know this, which is why an entire market exists around materials to help children with NAPLAN.
Is NAPLAN Necessary?
For the Australian government, NAPLAN is absolutely necessary, but, as with all types of standardised testing, there's a lot of well-founded criticism levelled at NAPLAN.
NAPLAN is useful for the government as it gives them a metric to track student performance across the entire nation in terms of numeracy and literacy. This means that local authorities can see which areas may need closer attention, more funding, etc.
It can also be useful for parents and children to see how their own academic performance lines up nationally, but it's probably more useful as a gauge of a child's own ability and progression.
One of the most useful applications of NAPLAN is that it can highlight students who may be struggling in terms of numeracy and literacy and take action before they fall behind. Essentially, it can flag underperforming students before it's too late and give schools, educators, and parents an early warning rather than waiting until it's too late.
In practice, however, NAPLAN can end up being a scoring system for schools and the focus is on getting good test results rather than actually teaching numeracy and literacy. Though NAPLAN is aligned with the relevant curricula, schools and pupils may end up focusing too much on the tests themselves, which is one of the reasons that New Zealand dropped their equivalent system.
Do Universities Look at NAPLAN?
Universities rarely care about NAPLAN results. NAPLAN is clearly for the government to gauge the numeracy and literacy of students across the country so there's really no need to worry too much about it.
The tests should be used solely to highlight if a child is struggling with numeracy and literacy and certainly shouldn't be a source of stress. Naturally, if a child wants to go to university and performs poorly on their NAPLAN tests, it's worth examining whether or not the poor performance was just on the tests themselves or is indicative of a broader struggle with numeracy and literacy.
Help is out there if they need it, but just remember that NAPLAN isn't something that students need to obsessively study for or lose any sleep over as the results are very unlikely to affect their future career prospects.
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