Four schools across the Hunter have recieved glowing results in the 2015 NAPLAN with Hunter Valley Grammar School outstripping the Australian average in all categories.
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The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) updated the My School website on Wednesday to reflect each school's performance in the NAPLAN tests last May.
ACARA identified Hamilton North Public, Tea Gardens Public, Hunter Valley Grammar and St James’ Primary at Muswellbrook – as having made “substantially above average gain in their NAPLAN results as students progress from year three to five and from year seven to year nine”.
Hunter Valley Grammar’s year five students scored significantly above the national average in numeracy and above average across reading, writing, spelling and grammar and punctuation.
The school’s year three students scored significantly above the national average in reading. They also scored above average across the rest of the board.
Hunter Valley Grammar head of junior school Liz Thompson said the school had a strong focus on teacher development and personalising the curriculum to meet individual student needs.
“We are constantly checking in with our students, giving them feedback about their work and clarifying their understanding and how they can improve,” she said.
“So far as individualising programs, we are constantly differentiating tasks and employing a variety of methods to meet personal needs.”
Ms Thompson said the strong performance in numeracy could be attributed to an effort to “front-load” students with the language needed to understand and interpret mathematical problems.
“When I talk about demystifying maths I refer to the idea that we unpack learning, use concrete and hands on applications at all levels,” she said.
The full results of the 2015 NAPLAN can be found by visiting myschool.edu.au
