From the Principal

Dear Parents and Friends,

Each year in March, across Australia, students participate in the NAPLAN assessments, and whilst it is a stress for students and a challenge for schools to implement, it is also the most useful data for tracking student and school progress.

Over my time at Lysterfield Primary School, there have been strengths and weaknesses in this data; however, despite the hard work and dedication of students, staff, and parents, our data has not seen the improvement we would all like to see. This prompted leadership and staff to look carefully at our practices and to make some changes to our teaching to ensure we are more explicit and deliberate. The first change to our programs (early 2024) was the introduction of daily Word Work (see Mrs Roose's report) through the PhOrMeS program. In Word Work, students learn about Phonology (through phonics), Orthography (correct spelling), Morphology & etymology and Semantics and vocabulary. We would expect that this would have a direct correlation to the Spelling and Grammar, and Punctuation NAPLAN tests. Below are 2 data sets that have us quite excited as we are starting to see some changes that indicate we are having an impact, and the data is trending in the right direction! NAPLAN data is difficult to explain, but I will do my best.

The data directly below shows our grade 5 results over the past 3 years and is broken into 4 categories in order of achievement: needs additional support, developing, strong, and exceeding. What this first set of data shows is that over the past 3 years, our results in Spelling and Grammar, and Punctuation are more positive in all categories, with fewer students in the bottom 2 categories (needs additional support, developing) and more in the top 2 categories (strong, exceeding), both as raw data and percentages.

When comparing different cohorts of students (eg grade 5 from 2023 and grade 5 from 2025) there are some obvious questions, such as, 'Is this just because those students were better at NAPLAN?' Another way for us to assess our effectiveness is to compare our current grade 5 students to their results in 2023, when they were in grade 3.

The data below shows the results of the current grade 5's from their 2023 tests and this year's test. Again, it shows a decrease in students in the bottom 2 categories and more students in the top 2 categories.

The way that our teachers implement the Word Work program is consistent with how we are now teaching all content in literacy, and we are confident that in 2026 we will be sharing even more positive news about our improvements in reading and writing.

Have a great weekend!

Adam Wight, Principal