Every year, all Australian students in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9 sit the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), which is an ongoing part of Australia's National Assessment Program (NAP).
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What is NAPLAN?
NAPLAN is a national assessment that tests students' ability in 4 domains — reading, writing, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation), and numeracy.
Schools in all states and territories have administered NAPLAN every year since 2008 (except in 2020 when it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Since 2023, NAPLAN has been administered in March (previously in May), allowing for results to be released to educational authorities, schools, and parents earlier in the school year.
Why do Australian schools participate in NAPLAN?
NAPLAN is part of the NAP, which is used to monitor and report on student achievement in a comparable and consistent way.
As the only full cohort national assessment undertaken by students, NAPLAN is the only test that can provide nationally comparable data about literacy and numeracy achievement across the country.
Australian students' results in NAPLAN are an important measure of our education system as they tell us, at both the national and the state and territory level, how well we are equipping young Australians with critical literacy and numeracy skills.
- For governments, NAPLAN data can inform priority areas for resourcing, so that funds can be directed to where they are needed most.
- For schools, results are used to identify areas of need to improve teaching programs, and to set goals in literacy and numeracy.
- For teachers, NAPLAN provides data which can be used to develop appropriate intervention strategies to improve outcomes over the remainder of the school year.
- For parents, NAPLAN provides information on how their child is performing against national proficiency standards, not just against other children in their class and school.
- For students, NAPLAN provides an opportunity for them to demonstrate what they have learned.
How and where are results from NAPLAN reported?
Individual student and school results
Parents and carers of students who participate in NAPLAN receive an Individual Student Report, which indicates their child’s achievement in the assessments conducted that year. In 2025, these were provided in early Term 3.
School level NAPLAN results are published annually on the My School website, usually in December.
NAPLAN national results
Each year, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) publishes detailed NAPLAN national results on their website.
The national results webpage includes a comparison of results for each state and territory for each domain and year level tested. Data is also broken down by subgroups, such as gender, Indigeneity, level of remoteness, language background, and parental education and parental occupation.
From 2025, data can also show the progression of cohorts of students through multiple NAPLAN test cycles.
Recent NAPLAN changes
In 2023, the NAPLAN assessment framework and reporting scale with 10 bands and a National Minimum Standard was replaced by 4 proficiency levels: Needs Additional Support, Developing, Strong, and Exceeding. NAPLAN results from 2023 onwards cannot be directly compared to results from 2008 to 2022 due to the difference in assessment and measurement.
Since 2023, NAPLAN testing has been conducted in Term 1 of the school year to allow for an earlier return of results to education authorities, schools, teachers, and parents and caregivers. The earlier return of results helps to inform school and system teaching and learning programs and will allow teachers to better assess what support students need for the year.
Further information is available on ACARA’s NAPLAN webpage.