The National Assessment Program for 2010 enables comparisons with the same group of students who sat the first tests in 2008. While QLD and the NT have the lowest scores Queensland registered the most improvement across all tests and all school years showing significant improvement in 10 of the 20 test areas over the past two years.
Following poor results in the first tests in 2008 QLD overhauled its teaching of literacy and numeracy based on a review by the Australian Council for Educational Research head Geoff Masters.
QLD Education Minister Geoff Wilson said the figures revealed vast improvement in more areas of the NAPLAN testing than any other state or territory since the program began in 2008 but”there is still a lot of work to do”.
Mr Wilson said the state’s average test scores and the proportion of students in the upper two bands at each year level continued to improve this year and a higher proportion of Queensland students had achieved results in the top two bands in 15 of the 20 test areas compared with last year and in 17 of the 20 areas since 2008.
Compared with last year’s tests writing grammar and punctuation rose in QLD in Year 3. Writing skills also rose in years 5 & 7 & 9 in QLD.
The purpose of the NAPLAN tests was not to level the system but to encourage improvement.