The National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is used by governments, education authorities and schools to determine whether young Australians are meeting important goals in literacy and numeracy. All students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are expected to sit the NAPLAN tests, which are held in May each year. NAPLAN gives a snapshot of how children are performing in reading, writing, language conventions and numeracy. It complements other effective classroom assessment and reporting practices.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) develops the tests and marking standards. Since 2016, NAPLAN testing has been aligned to the Australian Curriculum.

There are four tests: Language conventions, Writing, Reading and Numeracy.

For Years 7 and 9, the Numeracy test includes both non-calculator and calculator allowed sections. For the Writing test, students are given a stimulus and asked to write a response. The response formats for questions in all other tests are either multiple choice (clicking on a bubble to indicate the answer) or constructed response (type the answer in a box or on a line).

Students cannot prepare specifically for NAPLAN and are not expected to do so. These tests contain questions similar to those that occur in regular classroom learning and assessment.

Your child will do the NAPLAN tests online

Students at Foxwell State Secondary College will complete NAPLAN Online. By completing NAPLAN Online, students are provided a better and more precise assessment that is more engaging.

One of the main benefits of NAPLAN Online is tailored (or adaptive) testing, in which the test presents questions of higher or lower complexity depending on a student’s performance.

Tailored (or adaptive) testing is designed to assess a wider range of student abilities and to measure student achievement more precisely. Your child should not be concerned if they find questions more challenging than usual; they may be taking a more complex test pathway. A student’s overall NAPLAN score is based on the number and complexity of questions they answer correctly.

Ensuring students are familiar with using devices, typing on them and navigating through programs is a part of student learning and a requirement of the Australian Curriculum from the first year at school. NAPLAN Online is not a test of keyboard skills. There are variations in how fast and well a student can type – just as there are variations in how fast and well a student can write by hand. Schools and students have access to familiarisation through the public demonstration site.

Year 7 students at Foxwell State Secondary College will participate in two practice tests in the lead up to official NAPLAN Online. The purpose of these two tests is to: test the capability of the College's IT infrastructure; to test the suitability of student devices; and serve as an opportunity for students to familiarise themselves with the online testing environment. Results and outcomes from the two practice tests are not provided to the school, nor to parents or students upon completion.

The first practice test will take place on Wednesday 31st March at 9.00am. 

This test is a selection of different question types from across the Language Conventions, Numeracy and Reading tests. 

The second practice test will take place on Wednesday 21st April at 1.50pm. This test is a practice Writing test. 

Withdrawals

Parents can withdraw their child from the test by notifying the College in writing. Withdrawal is intended as an option to address issues such as religious beliefs and philosophical objections to testing.

Exemptions

Students may be exempted from one or more of the tests if they meet one of the following criteria:

• Students with a significant intellectual disability and/or significant co-existing conditions that severely limit their capacity to participate in the test
• Students with a language background other than English, who arrived from overseas and have been attending school in Australia for less than a year.

Exemptions for students with physical and/or intellectual disabilities are determined through consultation between the principal, student, and parents/carers.

Adjustments

A range of adjustments can be made for students with physical and/or learning disabilities. For example:

• Depending on their disability, students may receive slightly more time to complete the tests or be seated separately from their regular class.
• Modified formats, for example large-print and Braille, are provided for students with vision impairment.

For more information about NAPLAN:

• visit www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/8017.html for information about test dates, test preparation, test administration, reporting and analysis, newsletters and marker recruitment
• email the QCAA’s NAPLAN team at naplan.tests@qcaa.qld.edu.auor phone (07) 3864 0299
• visit www.nap.edu.au for general information including FAQs, brochures for parents and carers, and the future delivery of NAPLAN.