Haileybury students have access to a huge range of opportunities in the co-curricular space including performing arts, creative arts, sport and our many experiential learning programs. But underpinning everything we do is a focus on core academic development, so students have the knowledge and skills to thrive in their post school environment.
We have now received the final 2024 National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) data for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 this year. Haileybury students’ results are extraordinarily strong across all four year levels and all five domains — reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy.
The national, state and territory results were released last week by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority*. The debate has continued to focus on the fact that around one-third of all Australian students are not meeting proficiency for all year levels. This is deeply troubling.
In reading and writing this is in part because of the 30 plus year failure of the whole language approach to reading which was pushed and promoted by university education faculties. As Julie Hare noted in The Australian Financial Review on 17 August 2024, “It seems bizarre, almost unbelievable in fact, that universities have for at least four decades been peddling a baseless theory of early literacy and reading — the whole-word approach — that has undermined the educational attainment of millions of children and sabotaged many adulthoods.”
Twenty years ago, the evidence of this failure was already strong, and it was in 2008 when Haileybury rolled out the explicit teaching, phonics model in all our primary school classrooms.
It is unfortunate that several generations of Australian primary school students have missed the opportunity to learn through the evidence-based practice of explicit teaching and phonics. It is pleasing that finally, this year, every state and territory has agreed that this is the approach that should be followed.
Haileybury students have been fortunate to have the benefit of this approach followed by the brilliant teaching staff and it is why students are achieving between two to three years above the Australian national average in all year levels and domains.
An example of this is Year 3 Reading where the Haileybury student average is 513 compared to the national average of 404.2. The Australian Year 5 Reading average is 492. Thus Haileybury Year 3 students are well above the national Year 5 average. Haileybury Year 5s scored 582 which is well above the Year 7 national average of 535.
Two examples from numeracy reveal Haileybury’s Year 7 number score was 644 compared to the national Year 7 average of 539. The Year 9 Australian number average was 565.3 and Haileybury Year 9 students average was 675.
These are extraordinary results for Haileybury students and give them the core foundational skills and knowledge in literacy and numeracy to enable them to succeed in their further studies and after they leave school.
That Haileybury students achieve so well is the result of a focused program using evidence-based practices, outstanding teaching, committed students and great support from families. Congratulations to the whole Haileybury community.
*Disclosure: Haileybury CEO | Principal Derek Scott is also the Chair of ACARA.
Derek Scott
CEO | Principal
