WA's NAPLAN results trigger 'concern' for year 3s

Western Australia’s NAPLAN results show 40 per cent of year 3 students are struggling with numeracy, but year 9 students are out-performing the national average in every category this year.

Figures also show year 3 and 5 students ranked below the average NAPLAN score for every category. Year 7 students ranked below average for every category apart from spelling, in which students achieved a mark of 543.1, compared to the national average of 541.6.

WA’s year 9 students were the state’s best performers.

Despite the younger years largely experiencing below-average scores, there were some improvements on last year’s figures.

Year 5 grammar and punctuation saw a score increase of 0.8 per cent compared to last year, and year 7 numeracy was up 0.7 per cent.

The largest drop, however, was recorded in year 3 writing, which was down 1.7 per cent compared to last year.

Roughly 1.2 million students across Australia participated in NAPLAN testing this year and were assessed in five categories — writing, spelling, reading, numeracy, and grammar and punctuation.

When looking at how students ranked across the four score categories — “needs additional support”, “developing”, “strong” and “exceeding” — from lowest to highest, the stand-out figure from WA was year 3 numeracy scores, which saw 39.9 per cent of those students place in the bottom two tiers.

System ‘working well’

WA Education Minister Sabine Winton said the NAPLAN figures were “encouraging” for the year 9 cohort.

“For me, the real value in whether we are actually having great outcomes in our educational system is the growth that you bring to each and every child, whether it’s from term to term, from year to year,” she said.

“It is clear our education system is working well to add to that growth, and it’s working particularly well when you consider our year 9 results.

But Ms Winton acknowledged that the year 3 numeracy scores were of “most concern” in WA and across the nation.

“It really does, I think, reflect what I hear anecdotally from my mates in terms of more children with development delays, the more complex needs coming into our school system,” she said.

Opposition education spokesperson Liam Staltari shared Ms Winton’s concern over the year 3 scores and said the “warning signs” should not be be ignored.

“If I were the parent of an eight- or a nine-year-old, I would be concerned, because if we don’t support our kids in those critical early years, we know that they fall behind later in schooling,” he said.

Mr Staltari said the government needed to do more to set up children for success in year 3, pointing to low student-to-teacher ratios in WA classrooms and teacher burnout.