Today, after two and a half weeks of knuckling down, students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 concluded their NAPLAN assessments.
A staggering 4.5 million online tests were taken by about 1.3 million students in over 9,300 campuses and schools across Australia – a figure that ACARA CEO Stephen Gniel said is “a testament to the exceptional efforts” of teachers and principals who supported students to complete the tests.
“A big thank you to the 1.3 million students who sat NAPLAN 2026 and to the teachers and principals who supported them to do their best and show their literacy and numeracy skills,” Gniel said in a statement today.
“When technical issues arise in schools or the wider community is impacted by extreme weather, this disrupts students and teachers.”
Gniel said this should be recognised and acknowledged “up front” to make sure that the impact isn’t diminished.
“It is thanks to the amazing resilience and professionalism of our principals and teachers that our students across the country have completed their assessments,” he said.
“A big thank you also to all our state and territory test administration authorities who have been supporting schools and students through the disruptions, including the technical incident on day 1 for which we apologise once again.”
Gniel said there were no further significant national issues reported since the incident on day 1 and all other NAPLAN testing was completed as usual.
After the technical disruption on day one, ACARA moved quickly to work with test administration authorities to support affected schools and students. Measures were introduced to ensure no one was disadvantaged, including allowing extra time for students to complete their tests.
For the writing component, students who were unable to begin on the first day were given an alternative prompt. This is standard practice each year, as some schools are unable to schedule the writing test on day one for a range of reasons.
ACARA said it is aware of concerns from schools, students, parents and carers about how the disruption may affect results.
“Now that the tests have been completed, we will be carefully reviewing the data from the assessments over the coming weeks, and working very closely with state and territory test administration authorities to consider any additional measures needed to ensure fair reporting of the results,” Gniel said.
He also said it was important for everyone to remember the purpose of the NAPLAN assessments.
“The conclusion of this year’s test window is a chance for us to take a step back and remind ourselves about the purpose of the NAPLAN assessments,” he said.
“This is the only national assessment we have that lets us see whether young Australians are developing critical literacy and numeracy skills using a national, objective scale.”
Gniel said these important assessments help government and education authorities know how education approaches are working, identify where changes and support might be needed, and guide system-wide policy decisions.
“That’s why it’s not a pass or fail test. It’s a point-in-time test that helps us understand those strengths and areas for development,” he said.
“NAPLAN is one aspect of a school’s assessment program. It does not replace ongoing assessments made by our teachers about student performance, but it can provide important additional information about a student’s educational progress.”
In addition to the approximately 4.5 million online tests, thousands of Year 3 writing tests also took place on paper throughout the test period, with marking currently underway.
Preliminary results will be provided to schools in all domains except writing, which takes longer to mark, by the end of April 2026.
Schools will receive their full results, including writing, from June 2026, after which parents and carers receive their child’s Individual Student Report early in Term 3. ACARA is expecting to publish the National Results in early August 2026.
The original version of this article first appeared as a media release from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).