The annual results, for students in years three, five, seven and nine, were officially released on the My School education hub website on Wednesday, with some Tamworth schools, high achievers in their fields.

One of those schools was Hillvue Public School who achieved substantially higher marks than statistically similar schools in the writing, grammar and numeracy test components for year-three students. While Hillvue’s year-five kids achieved substantially higher results in reading, writing and grammar and punctuation.

Tamworth’s St Nicholas primary school received above average test results across the board in years three and five in writing, spelling, numeracy, grammar and reading. School principal Stefan van Aanholt said the school was happy with the students’ progress. 

Calrossy Anglican School’s years five and six students also achieved significantly higher scores than other schools while year nine students excelled in writing. Werris Creek Public School was also boasting a big win with their 2016 results indicating 80 per cent of their year five students exceeded expected growth from their year-three test results.

Principal Leonie Byrne said the school was “quietly celebrating” it’s latest NAPLAN success which was attributed to a whole school approach of staff and parents working together.

“Our reading results in particular were very encouraging and we’ve had lots of growth happening. I think this is largely down to an initiative called Early Action for Success, it started in 2014 where we have an instructional leader appointed to the school full time,” She said.

“They work shoulder-to-shoulder with teaching staff in the classroom, giving them support in professional learning and to help ensure we have quality teaching practices happening in the classroom.” 

Mrs Byrne said an interventionist teacher worked with children identified in the early stages of ‘falling behind’ to ensure they’re motivated to get back on track. 

She said the hard work would continue throughout the year.