School-aged children will start to receive the result from the Naplan tests from this week, but the reports won't be the same as previous years.
Not only were the national literacy and numeracy tests shifted earlier in the year, the results will be reported against four new achievement categories rather than six numerical bands.
The new reports will show how students are achieving against a challenging but reasonable standard which is a higher benchmark than previous years.
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority chief executive David de Carvalho said the new approach to reporting was based on advice from expert teacher panels and the views of parents.
"It's important that as teachers, schools, parents and carers begin receiving these reports that they keep in mind that expectations have been set at a higher level than previously and it is to be anticipated that a higher number of children will not yet be meeting the expectations at the time of testing," Mr de Carvalho said.
The individual student reports will show a column for each of the domains: numeracy, reading, writing, spelling and grammar and punctuation. A black circle will show the student's score and a black triangle will indicate the national average.
The four new proficiency standards are exceeding, strong, developing and needs additional support. The new measurement scale will mean states and territories will have to revisit their targets as the new results will not be directly comparable to previous years.
Association of Parents and Friends of ACT Schools executive officer Caitlin Blackford found the tests were more helpful for looking at the performance of schools and states and territory education systems, rather than on an individual student level.
"Typically, we have a bit of a quick look at them, see where they're tracking comparatively to the rest of the nation and they go in a drawer and they never get looked at again," Mrs Blackford said.
The association's president Patricia Falcetta said if a student completed the tests when they were having a bad day it might not be reflective of their skills. She was concerned about the anxiety the tests could cause for children.
"Where I've often had the issue with it is that it is a snapshot. It's not an overall indicator of how your child is performing over the whole year," she said.
Mrs Blackford said moving the test from May to March might mean schools would have less time to teach to the test and may reduce pressure on students.
In previous years, she has been surprised that ACT schools were not placed higher against the national benchmark.
"I would have thought that some of our independent schools would have been sort of higher across the board in terms of that national benchmarking, particularly when we live in a beautiful city with a very high socio-economic demographic."
Education Minister Yvette Berry said the directorate was still working with the authority on how to better understand the the socio-educational advantage calculations used on the MySchool website and how these perform for ACT schools.
The ACT has previously raised doubts about the way socio-educational advantage has been calculated to compare students of similar backgrounds.
The Education Directorate supported Victoria University to investigate whether the index of community socio-educational advantage (ICSEA) values was accurate. A report was provided in October 2021 but it is still being considered by the Australian Education Senior Officials Committee.
New NAPLAN levels
Exceeding: Student result exceeds expectations at the time of testing.
Strong: Student result meets challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing.
Developing: Student result indicates that they are working towards expectations at the time of testing.
Needs additional support: Student result indicates that they are not achieving the learning outcomes expected at the time of testing.
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