A NAPLAN report places each of a student’s results in one of four proficiency levels: Exceeding, Strong, Developing or Needs additional support. There is a standard for each assessment area at each year level, and NAPLAN is not a test anyone passes or fails.
General informationThis page explains the report as ACARA describes it on the National Assessment Program’s results and reports pages. It does not interpret any student’s result. For a student’s own report, ACARA’s pages point parents and carers to the school.
The four levels, in ACARA’s words
ACARA’s proficiency level descriptions define each level against what is expected “at the time of testing”.
- Exceeding
The “student’s result exceeds expectations at the time of testing.”
- Strong
The result “meets challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing.”
- Developing
The result shows the student is “working towards expectations at the time of testing.”
- Needs additional support
The result shows the student is “not achieving the learning outcomes that are expected at the time of testing”, and is likely to need extra support to progress satisfactorily. ACARA says this level is meant to pick out students at risk of not progressing satisfactorily at school.
The expectations behind the levels are set at what ACARA calls a challenging but reasonable level for the time of testing in March, based mainly on what has been taught in earlier years of school. Inside one level, results still differ: a student near the top of a level can show more of the skills, or more complex understanding, and any student may do better in some parts of a test than in others. The report itself carries short summaries of the descriptions for the student’s year level.
The same level, two years apart
Imagine a report showing Strong in reading in Year 3, and a second report two years later showing Strong in reading again in Year 5. Read quickly, that looks like standing still.
ACARA reads it differently. Each standard stands for harder skills and understanding as students move up the year levels, so a student at the same level in successive NAPLAN years, Year 3 then Year 5 for instance, can still be progressing.
The descriptions show how far apart the year levels sit. In Year 3 spelling, a result at Needs additional support describes a student who “correctly spells, and identifies errors in, a few words with simple spelling patterns”. In Year 9 spelling, Exceeding describes one who does the same with “words with very difficult spelling patterns”.
Behind the levels: five scales
Five, not fourUnder the levels sit 5 measurement scales: one each for reading, writing and numeracy, and two for conventions of language, one for spelling and one for grammar and punctuation. A student’s raw score, meaning the number of questions answered correctly, is placed on a scale so that different students’ results can be compared. In the tailored online tests, the average difficulty of the questions a student was given counts as well.
To compare across tests, ACARA uses equating: placing two or more tests on the same measurement scale, so that student performance and question difficulty can be compared directly.
Older reports do not line up
Results from 2023 onwards can be compared with each other, and so can results from 2008 to 2022, but the two groups cannot be compared directly. Two things changed in 2023: new measurement scales, better suited to the online tests, arrived with the proficiency standards, and the tests moved from Term 2 to Term 1. From 2008 to 2022 NAPLAN was held in May; since 2023 it has been held in March.
So a report from 2022 or before, kept in a drawer at home, cannot be read directly against one from 2023 or later.
When the report comes, and getting another copy
The test administration authority in each state and territory sends individual student reports to schools, and schools pass them on to parents and carers; the timing can differ from state to state. Every student who takes part receives a report, the format is the same for every student in Australia, and individual results are strictly confidential.
If no report arrives, ACARA’s page for parents says to contact the school. For a replacement, its FAQ points to the school where the student sat the test, and asks parents not to request one from the test administration authority directly; ACARA itself has no access to individual reports.
National results are separate from any one student’s report. The NAPLAN 2026 national results were released on 5 August 2026, in an interactive online report by year level and test, by state and territory, and by groups such as gender and remoteness.
A note on 2026 writing results
On day 1 of NAPLAN 2026, a technical disruption affected the online writing test for some students in Years 5, 7 and 9. It was resolved within 2 hours, and Year 3 students, who write on paper, were not affected. ACARA says NAPLAN results should always be read with care, and that this matters for 2026 writing results in particular. Parents and carers with questions about a child’s results are asked to contact the school first.
What a report does not tell you
- How a student is doing across the year: NAPLAN is one part of a school’s assessment and reporting, and does not replace the ongoing assessment teachers make, though it can give them more information about a student’s progress.
- How good a school is: ACARA says NAPLAN results do not measure overall school quality.
- What the answers were: ACARA does not publish answers to recent NAPLAN test questions.
School-level figures appear on the My School website as averages of all students’ results in each test and year level, where a higher number means higher achievement. ACARA adds that the fewer students tested, the larger the margin of error tends to be. How the tests themselves are run is in what NAPLAN tests, and when, and the adjustments some students have are in adjustments for students with disability.