NAPLAN – results, reports, performance

ACARA does not have access to individual student reports and cannot arrange for replacement reports to be issued.

To obtain a copy of your child’s NAPLAN report, you should contact the school where they sat the test. If the school does not have a copy of the report on hand, the school may request one from the test administration authority for their state or territory.

Please note: requests to the test administration authorities for replacement reports should not be made directly by parents.

State/territory test administration authorities (TAAs) provide individual student reports (ISRs) to schools to distribute to parents/carers. The timing may vary between states and territories.

The same report format is used for every student in Australia. The school will notify you when the reports are being sent home. If your child sat the tests and you did not receive a report, you should contact the school. Individual student results are strictly confidential.

For more information on ISRs, see Results and reports.

ACARA does not publish answers to recent NAPLAN test questions. Due to the nature of tailored testing, students see different questions based on how they perform in the test. As such there is no single version of the test that is available to be shared.

ACARA does not provide access to past NAPLAN tests after 2016 as these are used for the continued development and improvement of the NAP and its related projects.

To see test papers and answers from 2008 to 2016, visit the ACARA website.

NAPLAN is not a pass or fail type of test. Individual student performance is measured using 4 proficiency levels for each assessment area and year level: Exceeding, Strong, Developing and Needs additional support.

The performance of individual students in a test can be compared to the average performance of all students in their year level in Australia. These averages are included in the NAPLAN individual student report (ISR) provided to families.

School-level results data are provided to schools and reported on My School.

For detailed information on how NAPLAN results are measured and reported, visit Results and reports.

Students and parents/carers may use individual results to discuss students’ strengths and areas for improvement with teachers.

Teachers use results to help them identify students who require greater challenges or extra support.

Schools use results to identify strengths and areas of need in teaching programs and to set goals in literacy and numeracy.

Governments and school systems use results to review programs and support offered to schools.

NAPLAN results for 2023 onwards can be compared.

Results from 2008 to 2022 can also be compared but these results cannot be compared directly with results from 2023 onwards.

This is because new measurement scales that are more suited to the online tests were introduced with the new proficiency standards and because the tests were moved from Term 2 to Term 1.

Visit NAPLAN results and reports for more information.

Parents and carers can use the individual student reports (ISRs) they receive from 2023 onwards to compare their child’s proficiency levels. A student’s results compared to the national average and middle 60% of students can also be compared across testing years, for example across 2024 and 2026. Results from 2023 onwards cannot be directly compared to results from 2008 to 2022.

ISRs also provide examples of the types of skills assessed in each test, and examples of the skills typically demonstrated by students at each proficiency level for the year level. Detailed proficiency level descriptions are available on the Proficiency level descriptions page of this website.

As students move through the NAPLAN years, the skills and understanding required to achieve each proficiency level increase in difficulty. A student who achieves the same proficiency level in successive years, such as Year 3 and Year 5, may still be making progress.

Schools can use the SSSR data they received from 2023 (plus the additional proficiency level report issued in 2023 only) to compare proficiency levels for the same students along with class and year group results. Schools can also use any additional data provided by their test administration authority or other education authority. Results from 2023 onwards cannot be directly compared to results from 2008 to 2022.

Class and year group results can be tracked by measuring the proportion of students who sit within each proficiency level from 2023 – as the cohort moves from Year 7 to Year 9, for example, or for successive cohorts at the same year level.

On ACARA’s My School website, parents, carers and teachers can continue to see the average performance of students in each year level at their school through the Student results display. ‘Student progress’ and ‘Percentage of students making above average student progress’ is available for 2012–2021, and for 2023–2025 onwards.

As students move through the NAPLAN years, the skills and understanding required to achieve each proficiency level increase in difficulty. A student who achieves the same proficiency level in successive years, such as Year 3 and Year 5, may still be making progress.

Remember, NAPLAN tests are only one aspect of each school’s assessment and reporting process. Each student’s teacher will have the best insight into the student’s educational progress.

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 new ‘Needs additional support’ level is a better representation of students who need additional support.

The ‘Needs additional support’ proficiency level is intended to identify students who are at risk of not progressing satisfactorily at school. Students with results in other levels may also need support in particular areas. Those in the ‘Developing’ level are likely to need more support than those in the ‘Exceeding’ and ‘Strong’ levels.

Teachers can use the information in these assessments together with their own knowledge of a student to identify if support is required for students in levels other than ‘Needs additional support’.

No. National results do not include school-level information – this is available on My School. National reporting contains results by each year level and domain by state and territory, and nationally, along with results by gender, Indigeneity, language background other than English status, parental occupation, parental education, and remoteness.

The use of NAPLAN data for other purposes is subject to the decisions of local education authorities.

For information about prequalification for OLNA and the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) through NAPLAN, visit the WA School Curriculum and Standards Authority website.

NAPLAN results can assist teachers by providing additional information to support their professional judgement about students’ levels of literacy and numeracy attainment and progress. However, NAPLAN tests are only one aspect of each school’s assessment and reporting process; they do not replace the extensive ongoing assessments made by teachers about each student’s performance. Your child’s teacher will have the best insight into your child’s educational progress.

The NAPLAN scores for any given school on My School are the average of the results of all students in each test in each year level (e.g. Year 5 reading). The higher the number, the higher the achievement of the students in that year level.

The My School website enables parents, educators and members of the community to track school performance over time. This information is available in the NAPLAN tab under ‘student progress’ and ‘results’. My School also provides a detailed explanation of how to interpret student achievement data.

The NAPLAN average score for a school is a good indication of school performance based on the students who were tested in the school. The greater the proportion of students tested, the greater the accuracy. The My School website gives indicative confidence intervals for schools with different numbers of students. Confidence intervals reflect the accuracy of the estimates and the degree of confidence one can have in them.

NAPLAN scores provide an indication of students’ achievements, but they provide only one snapshot of selected aspects of what students know and can do. In interpreting a school’s results, there are 5 important considerations:

• No test is able to perfectly measure a student’s level of achievement and all tests are subject to a certain amount of measurement error. This means that there will always be a margin of error surrounding a school’s average score. In general, the smaller the number of students tested, the larger the margin of error.
• NAPLAN tests assess only a part of what students learn at school. For this reason, it is important to find out more about the whole curriculum of the school and the school’s performance across a range of areas. Start by visiting the school’s website or contact school leaders and teachers.
• In comparing the performance of schools, it is important to take into account differences in their student intakes.
• My School enables a school’s NAPLAN results to be compared with results for students who have a ‘similar background’. A school’s ‘student background’ takes account of the parental education levels and occupation, geographic location and the Indigeneity of its students.
• Key factors in a student’s family background (parents’ occupation, school education and non-school education) have an influence on students’ educational outcomes at school and on NAPLAN results.

NAPLAN is a valuable tool that can give useful insights into a student’s performance, but individual reports should be interpreted with care as they reflect the student’s performance on the day of testing. If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s NAPLAN results, discuss them with your child’s teacher, who will have the best insight into your child’s educational progress.

Equating is the process by which 2 or more tests are placed on the same measurement scale. This is so student performances and item (question) difficulties can be compared directly.

To see NAPLAN technical reports, visit Results and reports.

Education ministers cancelled NAPLAN in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in 2020 did not undertake the assessment in 2020 and did not do a ‘catch-up’ test in 2021. This means no student has a NAPLAN individual student report (ISR) for 2020.