National NAPLAN results released on Wednesday show numeracy scores in Years 5, 7 and 9 at their highest level since the testing scale was reset in 2023, while average reading scores in those same year levels fell against last year. More than 1.2 million students at about 9,400 campuses sat the tests.
The proportion of students who need additional support in reading was 10.2 per cent, up from 9.3 per cent in 2025. Across the tests as a whole, about two in three students landed in the strong or exceeding bands and about one in ten in the lowest.
The clearest movement was in numeracy, and it ran in both directions. In Years 5, 7 and 9 roughly 29,000 more students reached the exceeding band than in 2023, and about 1,600 fewer sat in the needs additional support band. Year 3 numeracy went the other way, recording its lowest average score since the reset.
“The drop in Year 3 numeracy results is clearly concerning," the chief executive of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, Stephen Gniel, said. The authority has pointed to a review of the mathematics curriculum from Foundation to Year 2 as the response.”
ACARA describes the national picture as broadly stable, with no reportable change in average scores between 2026 and 2025 or between 2026 and 2023. That word is doing specific work. A reportable change is one large enough to clear the authority's statistical threshold, so a set of results can move in a consistent direction across several year levels and still be recorded as stable.
The gap that did not move is geographic. In both reading and numeracy about 70 per cent of students at major city schools were rated strong or exceeding. At very remote schools the figure was 23 per cent.
Gniel said it was disheartening to see disparities "persisting over the years in the attainment of students from our regional and remote areas, Indigenous students and those from a disadvantaged background", and described closing them as a continuing focus.
Within that, Indigenous students recorded their highest average numeracy scores in Years 5 and 7 since the reset, and more reached the exceeding band in numeracy at Years 7 and 9.
Tasmania has no state level results this year. Participation fell below the technical standard required for valid reporting after industrial action, so the state is absent from the national comparison entirely. Participation elsewhere held above 95 per cent in Years 3, 5 and 7 and above 92 per cent in Year 9, slightly down on last year.
The 2023 reset means none of this can be measured against results before that year. Three years of comparable data now exist, which is the minimum needed to separate a trend from a fluctuation, and on reading the direction across those three years is down.
School level results are published on the My School website. The next national round runs in March.
