Leadership's Letter

NAPLAN Reports

The National Assessment Program – Literacy And Numeracy (NAPLAN) was held in March and results were released to schools and families in late July. I hope by now you have received a printed copy of the results of your son in Year 7 or Year 9. In the last two years Mazenod College has been able to scan a copy of the results sheet that each family receives and have stored a copy of this on the Results and Documents on Mazcom.

The intention behind this is to assist families in record keeping in case something happens to the physical paper report. At this stage, Mazenod College does not receive a digital copy of the reports, only paper copies to distribute to families.

Since 2023 NAPLAN reports have used four graded sections to communicate to families the progression of their students, Exceeding, Strong, Developing, and Needs Additional Support. Mazenod College’s NAPLAN results are excellent and indicate that the teachers at Mazenod are providing an excellent education for their students.

Alongside NAPLAN, Mazenod College utilizes the testing of Academic Assessment Services to monitor student progress. When we correlate the assessment data from NAPLAN and AAS we get to see at Mazenod just how much progress some students make.

An example from Year 8 is below. What you will notice is that the Year 7 NAPLAN score in Numeracy is on the horizontal axis, and the Year 8 AAS Mathematics score (called NPI) on the vertical axis. The blue dotted line indicates the same score in both tests.

With almost every student above the blue line, and many students far above the blue line, it indicates just how much progress students at Mazenod College achieve in Mathematics.

These tests, NAPLAN and AAS, are only indicators of academic achievement and progress, they in themselves don’t create progress. No amount of ‘teaching to the test’ or statistical coercion can ever have as great an impact on a student's progress as three very important factors:

1. The effort and attitude of the student.
2. The high-quality teaching in the classroom.
3. The supportive family encouraging the student.

With these three factors, students at Mazenod College will continue to excel in major assessments. What is crucial is the way each student is known by their teacher and supported by their families to achieve their very best.

God bless,

Kyle Hoad

Dean of Data, Systems & Analysis