 During August, parents and carers of years 3, 5, 7 and 9 students will receive the individual student reports for NAPLAN 2015. NAPLAN assesses the fundamental skills of literacy and numeracy. Children need these skills to function in everyday life, from taking public transport to doing their banking, from ordering food at a restaurant to completing their tax return in future years. You may not be thinking about any of these things right now, but we need to make sure that literacy and numeracy skills are learned from an early age. NAPLAN is a snapshot in time and allows you to compare your child's achievements against the national average and with other students in the same year group. There isn't any other test that does this. When you receive and read your child's report, I encourage you to line up the information in the NAPLAN report with what you already know about your child's academic performance and other school assessments or reports you already have. If you find any areas of difference or that need attention, you should talk to your child's teacher. He or she can bring other information about your child's learning to the conversation. Over the last couple of years, we've been working hard to get NAPLAN results back to you and your child's school more quickly so that any potential issues can be addressed as early as possible. You may have heard that NAPLAN will be moving online from 2017. If your child takes the test online, you'll be able to see their NAPLAN results within weeks rather than months. The results will also be more precise as the NAPLAN test will be tailored to your child's achievement levels. There's a lot of work we're doing to prepare for NAPLAN online and I encourage you to visit our website www.nap.edu.au to find out more. Thank you.