This year’s NAPLAN results reveal encouraging stories of student progress, but headlines about ’top’ schools risk oversimplifying how improvement really happens – and what parents should take from the data.

On Wednesday, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority  released the school-level results for this year’s NAPLAN tests. This reporting includes scores for years 3, 5, 7 and 9 across literacy and numeracy.

Parents received children’s  individual reports in July. Now we can see how individual schools performed.

Parents and the community can see how schools performed in absolute terms and how their students performed compared to other students with a similar background. They can also see how a school’s student cohort has progressed compared to other children with similar starting scores and similar backgrounds.

Media outlets have published stories about “ top performing” schools and those “ punching above their weight”.

It is a refreshing change to see positive stories of school improvement and student progress rather than the relentless doom-and-gloom of the last few years. However we should still........

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