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NAPLAN 2018

NAPLAN starts on Tuesday 15 May. Over a million Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students across the country will participate in the annual literacy and numeracy assessments, with some taking NAPLAN online for the first time.

NAPLAN is a point-in-time assessment to help parents see how their child, compared with the rest of Australia’s children, is progressing in the fundamental skills of literacy and numeracy. The information NAPLAN provides supports conversations between parents, teachers and schools, working together to help children achieve their full potential.

For educators, NAPLAN data can support school improvement processes by enabling teachers to monitor their students’ progress over time against a national measure. In fact, NAPLAN is the only national literacy and numeracy assessment that allows parents and teachers to see this progress over a period of years.

When NAPLAN data are used in combination with other school-based assessments, these can provide teachers with diagnostic information for planning their teaching programs, and guiding and supporting their students’ learning journey. You can read more on our website about how teachers have used NAPLAN data to improve the literacy and numeracy outcomes at their schools.

Literacy and numeracy are fundamentally important for all young people; however, NAPLAN is not, and should never be, the sole measure of a child’s achievement at a school or of the success of a school. School curriculum has much to offer. All students should have an opportunity to study a rich curriculum for literature, science, humanities and social sciences, technology, health and physical education, languages, and the arts.

As NAPLAN is aligned to the Australian Curriculum: English and Mathematics, the literacy and numeracy skills that teachers teach in the classroom are what students are tested on in NAPLAN – so the best preparation is for teachers and students to continue doing what they do each day.

For more information on NAPLAN, visit the NAP website.


Last updated: 02 May 2018