Final NAPLAN report confirms Queensland’s improvement

Education and Industrial Relations
The Honourable Cameron Dick

Monday, January 23, 2012

Final NAPLAN report confirms Queensland’s improvement

Queensland improved its national NAPLAN ranking in 2011 from sixth to fifth overall, proving the Bligh Government’s education reforms are delivering results, Education Minister Cameron Dick said today.

Mr Dick said the final report on the national NAPLAN results for 2011 confirmed Queensland’s continuing improvement in the literacy and numeracy tests, with the march being led by Year 3 students.

“The Australian Government’s NAPLAN 2011 National Report, released today (January 23), shows we are on the right track and provides further encouragement for Queensland schools,” he said.

“This report confirms what we already know: that Queensland is continuing to improve in the NAPLAN tests and that we’re narrowing the gap with the leading states.

“We have improved from sixth to fifth our ranking for the percentage of children who achieved at or above the national minimum standard, showing that we are heading in the right direction.

“Our Year 3 students were the standout performers of 2011, improving in all five test areas and posting the state’s best result for any year level in numeracy.

“This result shows our investment in the Prep year is starting to generate real gains in student performance.

“Overall since 2008, Queensland has shown improvement in 19 of the 20 tests areas against the national standards.”

Mr Dick said the results were a positive sign for Queensland’s overall education improvement agenda.

“They also show just how hard our principals, teachers and students have worked over the past few years so my congratulations go out to them,” he said.

Mr Dick said the NAPLAN 2011 National Report provided a breakdown of results by gender, geographic location, parental education and occupation, Indigenous and language background, and cohort gain.

“Our non-Indigenous Year 7 students posted the country’s highest scores, on average, in writing,” he said.

“Similarly Queensland’s Indigenous students in Year 7, along with Victoria, had the highest proportion performing at or above the national standard in writing.

“Queensland has improved its ranking from sixth to fifth in four test areas: Year 3 spelling, Year 5 grammar and punctuation, Year 7 reading and Year 7 grammar and punctuation. We’ve seen some improvements in the performance of Year 3 Indigenous students this year, with an increase in the number of these students performing at or above the national standard.

“And the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is smaller in Queensland than in Australia overall.  These results show Queensland’s continued rise in relative rankings since 2008.”

Mr Dick said the differences in performance between boys and girls, both in Queensland and nationally, remained similar to previous years.

“On average, our girls have out-performed the boys in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation,” he said.

“And our boys performed, on average, better than the girls in numeracy.”

Mr Dick said the State Government had made significant investments in early childhood education, recognising Prep as the first year of schooling and rolling out universal access to kindergarten.

“And we’re moving Year 7 to secondary school from 2015 to make the most of our investment in the Prep year and give our Year 7 students access to the benefits of a Junior Secondary learning environment,” he said.

“Most importantly we know that every day in our schools our principals and teachers are working hard to improve the literacy and numeracy skills and educational outcomes for Queensland students.”

Media contact: Minister for Education and Industrial Relations 3237 1000