1. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) Understanding your child’s report September 2009

2. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate Reporting to parents The Student Report 2009 is provided for all students who undertook the NAPLAN tests in 2009. The basic template for this report is the same for all students in Australia. The Additional Student Report 2009 is provided for students in NSW and ACT schools. This report gives you extra information on your child’s performance in the tests.

3. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate Reporting to parents An important feature of the reports is that they show achievement against a single assessment scale that covers 10 achievement bands from Year 3 to Year 9. This means that as your child does the NAPLAN tests every two years you will be able to compare the results with those from the previous test, and see his or her progress on the scale. Band 10 Band 9 Band 8 Band 7 Band 1 Band 6 Band 5 Band 4 Band 3 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5 Band 6 Band 4 Band 5 Band 6 Band 7 Band 8 Band 5 Band 6 Band 7 Band 8 Band 9

4. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate Reporting to parents Each Year level Student Report will show 6 of the bands. Year 3 reports will show bands 1 to 6 Year 5 reports will show bands 3 to 8 Year 7 reports will show bands 4 to 9 Year 9 reports will show bands 5 to 10 Band 10 Band 9 Band 8 Band 7 Band 1 Band 6 Band 5 Band 4 Band 3 Band 2 Year 3 Year 5 Year 7 Year 9 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5 Band 6 Band 4 Band 5 Band 6 Band 7 Band 8 Band 5 Band 6 Band 7 Band 8 Band 9

5. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate Achievement Bands Band 1 Students are below the national minimum standard Band 2 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5 Band 6 Band 7 Band 8 Band 9 Band 10 Year 3 Band 1 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5 Band 6 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5 Band 6 Band 7 Band 8 Year 5Year 7Year 9 Band 4 Band 5 Band 6 Band 7 Band 8 Band 9 Band 5 Band 6 Band 7 Band 8 Band 9 Band 10 Students are at the national minimum standard Students are above national minimum standard

6. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate sample student result range of achievement of middle 60% of this Year group range of bottom 20% for this Year group above expected range of achievement for this Year group below expected range of achievement for this Year group Achievement bands national average marker (triangle) for this Year group range of top 20% for this Year group This is the front cover of the Student Report. Your child’s results are on the inside pages of the report school average marker (clear triangle) for this Year group

7. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate These are names of the tests These circles show your child’s results for each test These comments describe some of the skills and understandings which students were asked to demonstrate in the tests. The Language Conventions test has 2 parts: Spelling Grammar and Punctuation.

8. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate If your child was absent from one of the tests, there will not be a student result marker shown for that test. There will be a comment that says ‘Your child was absent from this test’. In this example of a student report, the student was absent from the Numeracy test but present for the Language Conventions test. Comments are also included here for students who were exempt or withdrawn from a particular test or tests. Reports for parents are not issued for students who were absent, exempt or withdrawn from all tests.

9. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate The back of the report describes some of the skills assessed in this year’s tests. Skills increase in difficulty from the lower to the higher bands. Your child is likely to have correctly answered questions in the band his or her result falls at, as well as in the bands below it.

10. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate Additional Student Report The Additional Student Report 2009 is provided for students in schools in NSW. It includes a school average marker for schools where 5 or more students participated in the tests. It also tells you which questions your child answered correctly and which were incorrect.

11. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate The front of the Additional Student Report shows the same test results as the inside of the Student Report. Your child’s result The national average for this test and Year (black triangle) The school average for this test and Year (clear triangle)

12. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate The inside and back of the Additional report lists the questions in each of the tests. Questions and criteria increase in difficulty from the bottom of the list to the top. The numbers in the centre columns tell you the percentage of students in NSW who answered each question correctly.

13. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate The questions that your child answered correctly are listed on the left sides. The questions that your child answered incorrectly or did not attempt are listed on the right sides.

14. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate Codes for multiple choice questions (a), (b), (c) or (d) indicates which of the incorrect answers was chosen (*) indicates more than one answer was chosen (-) indicates the question was not attempted Codes are used to show the response to questions which a student had incorrect or did not attempt. The code is shown in brackets at the end of the question descriptor. The descriptor briefly outlines the skills and understandings being assessed in the question. Written response questions Where the answer has to be written for non- multiple choice questions, codes are also used to indicate the most common incorrect responses.

15. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate Codes for written response questions (b) indicates the most common incorrect response (c) indicates the next most common incorrect response (*) indicates another incorrect response. (-) indicates the question was not attempted Example of scoring written responses In Year 5, the students had to write the correct spelling of ‘author’. The codes and incorrect responses were: (b) auther (c) orther (*) any other incorrect spelling.

16. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate Distribution of Reports Reports will be delivered to schools across Australia in the week ending 11 September. Reports are to be distributed to parents across Australia on 14 September 2009 (not before).

17. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate Report Queries Parents are advised to make an appointment at the school if they need further information on interpreting the report or in finding out more about the performance of their children in the NAPLAN tests. It is important to remember that although the results are distributed late in term 3, students participated in NAPLAN very early in the school year, in May.

18. Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate Parent opinions The NSW Department of Education and Training will be conducting research on parent perception of the student reports following the release of reports in September 2009. Please go to www.naplanforparentsnsw.com.auwww.naplanforparentsnsw.com.au if you would like to participate in the survey or find out more about NAPLAN.