A growing number of children are falling behind at school. Here’s what the data shows

Ruby and her 11-year-old son Mark were dreading the day his scores on the national school assessment program were released.

And they confirmed the family’s worst fears: despite working hard to learn, the Year 5 student remained behind his peers.

Mark, whose name the Australian Associated Press agreed not to publish, was one of more than 1.3 million children in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9 who sat the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) in 2026.

As the only standardised national assessment, NAPLAN was primarily designed to help governments and schools measure results and fix funding or teaching shortfalls.

But for students such as Mark, seeing their results can be demoralising.

He has ADHD and autism and needs extra support at school.

“When I got the results, because it comes under Mark’s name, he wanted to see his results,” Ruby said.

“In his reading column … it actually said the bottom, bottom.

“I just thought to myself, ‘How could it be right at the bottom when he’s improved so much?'”

But scores for reading were worse than in 2025 for every year level, and Year 5 students were the only cohort whose writing ability had improved.

Overall, about one in three students across all levels did not meet basic literacy and numeracy benchmarks, falling into “developing” and “needs additional support” categories.

The writing scores were a particular concern in the two lowest grades tested, with less than 10 per cent of students exceeding national benchmarks.

Numeracy results had improved for most cohorts since 2025, though Year 3’s score had decreased.

Results from previous years showed a clear literacy divide between children from wealthy, educated areas and those who grow up in areas of low socio-economic status.

Ruby said she also struggled at school and her challenges went unnoticed because of her learning environment.

She is now raising her children on a low income.

“With Mark, I just wish there was more people, just more at the school to help,” she said.

Better support that understands the specific needs of struggling families would help improve results, The Smith Family chief executive Doug Taylor said.

“With 72,000 low-income students across Australia, the right support at the right time can make a huge difference,” he said, noting schools should also consider the skills students had beyond academic ones.

In rural communities and towns with high Indigenous populations, results have dramatically improved in recent years.

That was due to increased funding and the use of explicit teaching models, Education Minister Jason Clare said in a speech at the Garma Indigenous festival over the weekend.

“Over the last four years, the numeracy results of Indigenous students have gone up and up,” he said.

“In Year 5 by 9.5 points and in Year 7 by 9.3 points. That’s a good sign.”

Separately, the federal government’s commitment to cover a quarter of the Schooling Resource Standard to reach full funding for public schools was rolled out in 2026.

In October, the controversial Thriving Kids program will, in part, replace the National Disability Insurance Scheme for children under nine with development delays.

Tasmanian students did not sit NAPLAN in 2026 because of industrial action.

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