South Australia's school improvement approach is paying off with the state recording its highest ever NAPLAN mean scores in years 3 and 5 reading and spelling.
Today's results also show dramatic gains for South Australia since 2018, with our state recording improvements in every year level compared with the national average.
The biggest improvement from 2018 is in year 3 where the combined scores across test areas improved by more than double the national average, outstripping gains in all other states.
In year 9, South Australia was the only state to record gains in our combined mean scores since 2018.
Year 5 and year 7 students also did well, with results showing respectively the second and third strongest improvements of all states by the same measure.
The results are a ringing endorsement of the Marshall Liberal Government's focus on improving educational outcomes since coming to office in 2018, including the Literacy Guarantee package of measures such as the teaching of phonics in the early years of schooling.
One key measure has been the annual delivery of the Phonics Check for all year 1 students in government schools since 2018.
The Phonics Check, which is backed by a comprehensive program of teacher training, helps teachers to identify how a student is tracking with their reading skill and plan for any additional support they need.
Minister for Education John Gardner welcomed the test results as a significant step forward but identified there is still work to be done to realise South Australia's world-class ambition.
"The results are a strong endorsement of our evidence-backed approach to improving literacy.
"Our decision to focus on foundational literacy skills in the early years of primary school through the introduction of the Phonics Check, literacy coaches and a range of training and support measures for schools is paying off.
"Importantly 2021 continues the recent pattern of growth for SA students and demonstrates that we are improving at a faster rate than any other state.
"Teachers, school leaders and students can rightly take credit for this progress. Our results leading up to when we came to government in 2018 weren't where we wanted them to be and the dramatic improvements we are seeing in today's scores are the result of an enormous amount of hard work by many people across our state.
"It wasn't so long ago that South Australia was scoring fifth or sixth out of six states in almost every domain. This year we are third or fourth in a majority of testing areas. We're on the right track and we want the rapid improvement we've seen over the last three years to continue and accelerate.
"Our ambition is to achieve learning growth for every child, in every class, in every school and our focus is now on pushing the reading and writing results higher and replicating the growth trajectory across all the test areas."
"It's important to remember that NAPLAN results aren't everything and many important things happen in our schools that aren't tested by NAPLAN. However NAPLAN does give us a good assessment of how we're tracking with our critical foundational skills related to literacy and numeracy – and these are the skills that give our students the capacity to succeed in their schooling and to succeed in life."
Highlights from the test results include:
SA's highest ever mean scores in:
- Reading Year 3 and 5
- Spelling Year 3 and 5
- Numeracy Year 5
SA's highest ever percentage of students scoring in the highest test band in:
- Reading Year 3 and 5
- Numeracy Year 5 and 7
- Spelling Year 3 and 5
