NAPLAN Reporting

Introduction of proficiency standards

From 2023, NAPLAN reports will more accurately reflect the personalised (adaptive) online tests that students undertake and will facilitate the provision of timely, more precise reporting on the foundational skills of literacy and numeracy.

Proficiency standards have been introduced to provide simple and clear information for parents and carers about whether their child is where they need to be in relation to the development of their literacy and numeracy skills at the time of testing, and if not, they will indicate to the school that interventions and learning supports may need to be put in place for those students who may be at risk of falling behind.

For each NAPLAN assessment area (writing, reading, conventions of language - spelling and grammar & punctuation, and numeracy), students will receive a result that indicates how they have performed in the 2023 tests in relation to four proficiency levels. These are:

• Exceeding
• Strong
• Developing
• Needs additional support

This information will be displayed on the Individual Student Report (ISR) for each student who participated in NAPLAN in 2023. Individual student reports will include descriptors and instructions for how to interpret the new achievement scale and student performance. The report will continue to show the national average and the range of achievement for the middle 60 percent of students in their year level, allowing comparison of a child’s achievement against these measures.

Schools will receive summary reports on student performance incorporating these new proficiency levels in the VCAA Data Service.

There are four proficiency levels for the NAPLAN tests: Exceeding, Strong, Developing, and Needs additional support.

The highest proficiency level of ‘Exceeding’ indicates that a student’s result exceeded expectations at the time of testing. A student with a result at the ‘Strong’ level has demonstrated that they have met the challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing.

Students who achieve a result of ‘Developing’ for one or more NAPLAN test areas have demonstrated that they were working towards expectations at the time of testing.

Students who receive a result of ‘Needs additional support’ have demonstrated that they were not achieving the learning outcomes expected at the time of testing. These students are likely to need additional support to progress satisfactorily.

Proficiency standards are common in other national and international assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS), the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), and the NAP sample assessments in science literacy, civics and citizenship, and ICT literacy.

In 2019, Ministers agreed through the National School Reform Agreement to introduce proficiency standards for NAPLAN. With the transition to online testing completed last year, in February 2023, Ministers endorsed the decision to proceed with implementing these reporting changes. A copy of the communiqué from the Education Ministers Meeting can be found at https://www.education.gov.au/education-ministers-meeting/resources/education-ministers-meeting-communique-10-february-2023.

The proficiency standards were developed with input from all education authorities, and the design of the student reports involved input from both parent focus groups and national parent organisations.

Reporting against proficiency standards aims to provide a range of benefits, including simple, clearer, and more helpful information at a glance. Teachers and parents will be able to quickly determine if a student is meeting expectations for their current stage of schooling. The proficiency level descriptors provide information on what students at each level can typically demonstrate in each NAPLAN test domain, using the Australian Curriculum as a reference.

Teachers can use this information to identify individual students strengths and weaknesses and to determine the proportion of students who are meeting the expected levels of achievement.

NAPLAN results and the proficiency level descriptors can be used to determine areas where further support may be required, in conjunction with ongoing assessment and professional judgement about student progress in literacy and numeracy. This information can inform student feedback and discussions with parents, which, together with other school assessments, can be used to assist children in reaching their full potential.

Teachers can view the full proficiency level descriptions for each NAPLAN assessment area on the ACARA NAPLAN website reporting page.

The proficiency standards were set by expert panels of subject-area specialists.

The teacher panels classified NAPLAN questions into proficiency levels based on their judgement of what students in each level could achieve and the knowledge and skills that students would have been expected to have been taught in previous years. These judgements were mapped onto the NAPLAN measurement scales to set numerical cut-points between the levels.

The cut-points for each proficiency level were established on the new scale in 2023 and will not change in future years. This allows the monitoring of school-level performance over time.

Due to the earlier administration of NAPLAN in March and the reporting reforms in 2023, including the introduction of the new NAPLAN measurement scale and time series that are more suited to the online tests, results from 2023 onward cannot be directly compared with results from 2008 to 2022.

As proficiency standards and levels have replaced the previous numerical (NAPLAN) bands, information on student achievement with reference to these bands is no longer available.

This year, schools will be able to track a student's performance relative to that of other students by using the information on the individual student report and comparing it against the national average, as well as the student’s result relative to the range of achievement for the middle 60% of students.

Schools will also be able to track individual student results over time by comparing the numerical scores provided in school-level results in the VCAA Data Service.

Class or school results can be tracked over time from this year by measuring the proportion of students who sit within each proficiency level over different years – as the cohort moves from Year 7 to Year 9, for example, or for successive cohorts at the same year level.

Improvement will generally be visible when an increased proportion of students achieve results at higher levels. However, it must be kept in mind that an increase in the proportion of students in the ‘Strong’ and ‘Developing’ categories could be partially the result of students moving into the lower level from the levels above (Exceeding and Strong respectively). So, changes in the proportions across all levels need to be considered before an overall assessment of improvement can be made.

Teachers can continue to see the performance of students in each year level at their school on the My School website through the above-average progress data display. This shows the percentage of students at a school making above-average progress compared to students of a similar background who had the same starting score on their previous NAPLAN test.

NAPLAN tests are one aspect of a school's assessment and reporting process. The tests are not intended to replace the ongoing assessments made by teachers about each student’s performance or progress.

A lower-than-expected performance may indicate the student requires more targeted support. Results can also reflect poor performance on that particular day and should not be viewed in isolation.

For this reason, parents have always been advised to discuss any concerns they have about their child’s NAPLAN results with their teacher to get a more complete picture of their child's literacy and numeracy attainment and any areas in which they might need further support.

The previous National Minimum Standard provided an approximate measure of which students needed additional support but identified too few of these students. It could also give the impression that a student had met learning expectations if they were above the National Minimum Standard.

The ‘Needs additional support’ proficiency level is a better representation of students who need additional support and is intended to identify students who are most at risk of not progressing satisfactorily at school. This does not mean that students whose results are at other levels will not require support in particular areas. For example, those in the ‘Developing’ category are likely to need relatively more support than those in the ‘Exceeding’ and ‘Strong’ categories.

Schools and teachers are encouraged to review student NAPLAN results together with their own knowledge of a student to identify if support is required for students at levels other than ‘Needs additional support’. Regardless of how a student performs, improvement is always possible.

Teachers can review student NAPLAN results together with their own knowledge of a student and the exemplar items provided in the student-level reporting on the VCAA Data Service to consider what needs to be done to support a student’s progress.

Information on all NAPLAN reporting changes, including more detailed proficiency level descriptions (online and printable versions), is available on the ACARA NAPLAN website reporting page.

The year 9 certificates of achievement are designed to celebrate students who achieve the highest level in NAPLAN, irrespective of where they start. The certificates are jointly signed by the Minister for Education and the VCAA CEO.

Students who receive a result in the ‘Exceeding’ proficiency level for reading and/or numeracy for NAPLAN 2023 will receive a certificate.

Hard copies of a parent and carer brochure are included in the NAPLAN reporting package for schools to distribute along with the Individual Student Reports. The brochure is available for download in multiple languages on the Information for parents page.

Parents may find the following video on reading the Individual Student Report

useful to understand student-level reporting and the new proficiency standards for NAPLAN.

Schools access the VCAA Data Service using the same login details as those distributed for the VCAA NAPLAN Test Administration website. Schools needing login support should contact the VCAA NAPLAN Helpdesk.

The VCAA Data Service is accessible using:

• IE (V11) on Windows 7
• Edge on Windows 10
• Safari on MacBook
• Safari on iPad (landscape only)
• Chrome on an Android Tablet (landscape only)
• IE (Windows 7) or Edge (Windows 10) on a Surface Tablet (landscape only)

A VCAA Data Service User Guide is available to assist with accessing and interpreting the reports.

In addition, the VCAA will be offering professional learning sessions for school staff on using the VCAA Data Service reports later this year.

The webinars will be conducted using Cisco Webex, a cloud-based web and video conferencing platform. Before joining a webinar, please ensure that your system is set up for Webex Events:

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By accessing the 2023 NAPLAN reporting and data service professional development webinar via Webex, you acknowledge that you have read, understood and consent to, the terms of the VCAA collection notice below.

VCAA collection notice (Webex)

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) is a statutory authority continued under the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 (Vic). The VCAA collects the information requested on this form, which includes personal information within the meaning of the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic), for the purpose of facilitating your registration and participation in the 2023 NAPLAN reporting professional development webinars.

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When accessing the webinar, you will be required to log in by providing your first name, surname, email and password. This information will also be collected by Cisco Webex and stored by Cisco Webex on its data servers. During the webinar you may wish to ask questions using the ‘Chat Box’ or ‘Q and A’ function. If you decide to use the ‘Chat Box’ or ‘Q and A’ function, your name will be disclosed to the webinar presenter and other participants during the webinar. Please be aware that this webinar may be recorded. The attendees list, ‘Chat Box’ and ‘Q and A’ will not be visible in the published recording. An individual may request access to personal information the VCAA holds about them and request its correction if inaccurate. To do so, please contact the VCAA NAPLAN team on vcaa.naplan.help@education.vic.gov.au. View VCAA Privacy Policy