 In a nutshell, the NAPLAN test is assessing students' basic literacy levels. It is important that all teachers contribute to developing those literacy levels. So as a teacher, we can use the content that we're so passionate about to deliver basic literacy skills. It's not about anything extra, it's about incorporating effective strategies into your teaching and learning practices that students will benefit from. These are skills that they will use for the rest of their lives. So it's your responsibility and teachers' responsibilities to make sure that the students are exposed to those skills that they need for their future. So it's definitely not about an extra thing that we have to incorporate, it's about delivering our content through the skills that they need. Well, NAPLAN data is a great way for us to also see the different programs and the different things that we're implementing within the classroom and within the school, whether they're working efficiently and whether they are actually increasing our student outcomes. So it gives us that map of progress. The other way that we're able to use the NAPLAN data is that it gives us those future directions. So for example, at a staff meeting, after examining the NAPLAN data, staff made connections about some of the things that some of the patterns and some of the things that they saw occurring and then from that they were able to create as a staff questions about where to next. So how could we, and for example, one of the questions was how could we increase our Year 3 students' interest level reading or our Year 3 boys' reading interest levels or how can we implement what we do very well in spelling? How can we get children to transfer those skills within spelling to everyday writing? So the NAPLAN data provides us with the information that we need to start at the point at which the students are and to provide better pedagogy and better curriculum for them individually. NAPLAN data is helping informed teachers about their students, about their strengths, their weaknesses. In terms of the NAPLAN data itself, we take things in a very literal sense in terms of creating data walls for all our staff. So the idea is we have this collection of data from NAPLAN, obviously in Year 7 and Year 9, that we can actually put a face to that data. And we put displayed in a very prominent place in our staff quarters so that in terms of becoming a highly visual tool that teachers can use to identify students that might ordinarily be slipping through the gaps or fly under the radar or putting their face in terms of their name front and centre, we seem to be able to alleviate those issues. The key area in which it's helping us to improve student learning outcomes is the tracking of growth of each individual student. We have a personalised learning agenda at our school so that individual feedback provided on teaching programmes through the item analysis that allows us to corroborate where every kid is at. And if we teach them at their identified point of need, that's the key to making rapid progress. And we have seen the proof of the pudding because that process has worked for us. It has lifted the student gain tremendously from years 3 to 5. And it's a simple formula for us, but it's one that we found that works. See where the gaps are. Build teacher knowledge of the precursor and skills that support that gap. And teach to that gap and assess and then I think we generally find that we fill those gaps. And that is our key to driving student learning. The NAPLAN data, whilst it's great for assisting us at our own school in terms of classes and their specific literacy and numeracy needs, is also beneficial because we can then feed back to our feeder primary schools the areas of weakness, particularly for our Year 7 students. And they can then build those areas of concern into their teaching and learning programs as well. We have a very strong community of schools link, so we try to minimise the gap between primary school to high school. So that's one way in which the data is useful in that respect. Within our own school, just the ability to look at the class need and build up those skills within our everyday teaching and learning program. And just making sure that we are progressing from what the child's already at to where we want them to be, identifying them on the literacy and numeracy, continuing and ensuring that we're moving them along. That's just one of the benefits of the smart data NAPLAN package. In terms of the school, it allows us to ensure that we are teaching and ensuring that there is progression and it's not just teaching for teaching's sake. It's there to ensure that our students walk out the school gate being literate and numerate as a member of society. Aries' use of NAPLAN data to improve student outcomes also can be used with raising expectations of teachers. It allows us to look at where our children are and where they can go and also how we can get there. It also provides the school with a shared goal. It's not about A teacher in A class, it's about the school. It's about the school understanding the context of the students, what their needs are, what the individual needs are and what their group needs are. And we can use that data really well to map forward to get more positive outcomes for our students. One of my previous schools, a very low achieving school, which consistently was underachieving in a wide range of tests, was a very difficult school to work in. It had a lot of behavioural issues and teachers felt disempowered by finding some focus areas that teachers could use to implement, to make improvements in teaching, their teaching, but also in the student outcomes, provided us with success, small success. Not success, it was out of the range of that particular group of students or teachers, but success which we were able to build on. And indeed over periods of years, that success translated into more than just the classroom, it translated into behaviour, self-esteem, creative and performing arts. So those fundamental things that happen in a classroom, the success of children, are very important for the overall well-being of students. It's enabled us, the NAPLAN data has enabled us to actually focus our teaching. It's informing us with the areas that our students perhaps are not doing as well in, also those that they are doing very well in. And so we can see where our programs are working and for those other areas where they're not, it means that that's what we need to incorporate into our teaching. And by doing that we're giving our students a very comprehensive education and they should come through then with all the skills that we want them to.