Richardson Primary is one of the ACT's most successful schools despite taking students who often enrol with considerable educational disadvantage.
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The small public school in Tuggeranong is one of fewer than 10 ACT schools identified to have a low socio-economic status, but it is showing significant gains for its students across the board - particularly in Year 5 numeracy where it tops Canberra.
Principal Jason Borton has mixed views on NAPLAN testing, given Richardson's raw score results are often lower than schools with more advantaged students.
He knows what it is like to run a school that is achieving great things for its students, but which looks to the rest of the city like it is less successful than others.
For him, the gain results show the real value of the programs his staff employ to take their young charges off a low base and catch them up - not only to where they should be, but often beyond.
"This is our third year of significant gains, and frankly, it's what we do it for," Mr Borton said.
"Sometimes we can take a student through three years of gain in just one year."
He noted "NAPLAN is just one of the many test we consider when we look at each of our students. But we don't focus solely on it or teach to the test."
He also noted that NAPLAN did not start providing diagnostic advice until a student hit Year 3.
"For us, we are focused very strongly on early intervention."
"We start in kindy with PIPS testing [Performance Indicators in Primary Schools] which we do at the start and end of the year."
The school closely followed the strategies of British academic Dylan Wiliam, whose work on formative assessment is increasingly being adopted across a number of Canberra schools.
"It basically means teachers checking in with their students constantly along the way to ensure they are understanding what they are doing, not waiting until the end of term to find out they are not keeping up."
"We take kids who are starting well below the ACT average but they are finishing above it by the end of the year – sometimes gaining two or three years in one year."
Mr Borton said NAPLAN would always be a small measure of performance at a point in time.
"We see it as a tool that gives us trend data. But we don't use it to judge a school's performance and we hope the rest of the community understands that too."
