The 2025 school year marks the first full reporting cycle since the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) adjusted the NAPLAN proficiency standards in 2023, moving from the previous 10-band structure to four proficiency levels: Exceeding, Strong, Developing, and Needs additional support. For students enrolled in the New Arrivals Program (NAP), this recalibration has direct consequences. Year 9 students who arrived in Australia with limited English and entered an intensive English centre or receiving school under a NAP arrangement are now assessed against the same Year 9 tests as their mainstream peers, regardless of how recently they commenced English instruction. The Department of Education’s National Report on Schooling in Australia 2023, released in November 2024, recorded 28,413 students participating in NAP-funded intensive English tuition across government and non-government sectors, with Year 9 representing the largest single cohort at 6,871 students nationally. Understanding how the New Arrivals Program intersects with NAPLAN Year 9 English language assessment is critical for parents, school administrators, and settlement service providers, because the test outcome influences subsequent subject streaming in senior secondary years and can affect eligibility for EAL/D (English as an Additional Language or Dialect) support in Years 10–12.
NAPLAN Year 9 English Language Assessment Framework
Test Structure and Proficiency Standards
The Year 9 NAPLAN English language assessment comprises three domains: Reading, Writing, and Language Conventions. The Reading test presents students with a magazine containing 6–8 texts of varied genres, including narrative extracts, persuasive articles, information reports, and poems, followed by 45–50 closed and open-response items. The Writing test requires a single sustained composition in response to a prompt, marked against 10 criteria including audience, text structure, cohesion, vocabulary, and sentence structure. The Language Conventions test includes 55–60 items covering spelling, punctuation, and grammar, delivered as multiple-choice and short-answer questions.
Since the 2023 proficiency standard revision, ACARA has set the cut-point for “Needs additional support” at a scale score that indicates the student is not yet demonstrating the literacy skills required to access the Year 9 curriculum without targeted intervention. For Year 9 Reading in 2024, the national minimum standard scale score was 480; for Writing, 465; for Language Conventions, 475 (ACARA, NAPLAN National Results 2024, published August 2024). Students in the New Arrivals Program who sit NAPLAN in their first or second year of English instruction frequently score within the “Needs additional support” band, which is a predictable outcome given their developing English proficiency and does not indicate cognitive deficit or general academic delay.
EAL/D Learner Exemptions and Participation Rules
Not all New Arrivals Program students are required to sit NAPLAN. The National Protocols for Test Administration 2025, issued by ACARA in February 2025, permit exemption for a student who “has been attending school in Australia for less than one year before the test and whose language background is other than English.” This exemption is not automatic; it requires a documented decision by the school principal in consultation with the EAL/D specialist teacher and the student’s parents or carers. The protocol specifies that exemption should be applied where the student’s limited English would render the test experience “unreasonably stressful and educationally uninformative.” Students who have completed between one and two years of Australian schooling are expected to participate, though schools may apply for a disability adjustment or request that the test be administered with a bilingual support person where available. The exemption window is narrow: a student who arrived in March 2024 and sits NAPLAN in March 2025 has just passed the 12-month threshold and must sit the test unless the principal determines exceptional circumstances apply.
The New Arrivals Program: Structure and Delivery
Program Funding and Eligibility
The New Arrivals Program is a Commonwealth-funded initiative administered by state and territory education departments under the Australian Education Act 2013 (Cth) and associated regulations. Funding is allocated on a per-student basis to government and non-government schools that provide intensive English language tuition to eligible newly arrived students. To qualify, a student must hold a visa subclass that grants access to Australian schooling (including Refugee visas subclass 200–204, 866; Humanitarian visas subclass 202, 204; and dependent children on Temporary Skill Shortage visa subclass 482 or Student visa subclass 500 where state policy permits); must have arrived in Australia within the previous 18 months; and must be assessed as requiring intensive English support to participate in mainstream classes. The Australian Government Department of Education confirmed in its Schools Funding Report 2023–24 (published October 2024) that total NAP funding for the 2023 calendar year was $78.3 million, supporting approximately 28,400 students across 87 intensive English centres and 312 receiving schools.
Program Duration and Curriculum
The standard NAP enrolment period is 12 months, though extensions to 18 months are available for students with disrupted prior schooling or low first-language literacy. In Victoria, the Department of Education’s New Arrivals Program Guidelines 2024 stipulate that students attend either a standalone English Language School or a designated English Language Centre co-located with a mainstream school for 12 months of full-time intensive English, with transition to a mainstream school commencing in the second semester where readiness indicators are met. New South Wales operates the Intensive English Centres (IEC) model, with 23 centres across metropolitan Sydney and regional hubs including Wollongong and Newcastle. The curriculum delivered in NAP settings is aligned to the Australian Curriculum EAL/D Learning Progression, which maps four phases of English language development: Beginning English, Emerging English, Developing English, and Consolidating English. Year 9 students typically enter at the Emerging or Developing phase and are expected to reach Consolidating English by the end of their NAP enrolment, at which point they should be able to access the Year 9 mainstream English curriculum with reduced support.
Interaction Between NAP Enrollment and NAPLAN Performance
Timing Effects on Test Outcomes
The relationship between NAP enrolment duration and NAPLAN Year 9 English performance is well documented. A longitudinal study published by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in June 2024, drawing on NAPLAN data from 2019–2023 for 4,200 NAP students, found that Year 9 students who had completed fewer than 6 months of intensive English at the time of testing achieved a mean scale score of 412 in Reading, compared with 461 for those with 6–12 months of instruction and 498 for those with 12–18 months. The national mean for all Year 9 students in Reading in 2024 was 552. The same study reported that Writing scores showed the largest gap: NAP students with under 6 months of instruction averaged 388 against a national mean of 538. These disparities reflect the time required for academic English development and are consistent with international research on second-language acquisition in school settings.
Post-NAPLAN EAL/D Support Allocation
A NAPLAN result in the “Needs additional support” band does not, in itself, determine a student’s post-NAP educational trajectory. State education departments use NAPLAN data alongside teacher judgement and EAL/D specialist assessments to allocate continued English language support. In Queensland, the Department of Education’s EAL/D Allocation Model 2025 assigns a band level from 1 to 4 based on a composite of NAPLAN scale scores, EAL/D Learning Progression phase, and time in Australia, with Band 1 students receiving the highest level of in-class EAL/D teacher support in Years 10–12. South Australia’s Intensive English Language Program Transition Policy, updated January 2025, mandates that every NAP graduate entering Year 10 mainstream must have an Individual EAL/D Learning Plan that specifies NAPLAN-informed targets for vocabulary development and written expression over the subsequent 12 months. Parents and carers should request a copy of this plan from the receiving school’s EAL/D coordinator within four weeks of the student’s transition.
Practical Considerations for Families and Schools
Pre-Test Preparation in NAP Settings
Intensive English centres and NAP receiving schools typically incorporate NAPLAN familiarisation into the Term 1 curriculum for Year 9 students who will sit the test. This includes exposure to past NAPLAN papers, instruction in test-specific vocabulary (such as “narrative,” “persuasive,” “cohesion,” and “infer”), and timed writing practice under conditions approximating the test environment. The NSW Department of Education’s EAL/D NAPLAN Preparation Resource (published February 2024) recommends that NAP teachers allocate 2–3 hours per week in the six weeks preceding NAPLAN to explicit test-literacy instruction, focusing on the structure of multiple-choice items, the language of written prompts, and strategies for managing unfamiliar vocabulary in reading passages. Bilingual glossaries of NAPLAN terminology are available in Arabic, Dari, Vietnamese, Simplified Chinese, and Karen through the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority’s EAL resources portal.
Interpreting Results and Planning Next Steps
When NAPLAN results are released to schools in Term 3, NAP staff and receiving-school EAL/D coordinators should jointly review the individual student report with the student and their family. The report displays the student’s scale score and proficiency level for each domain, and includes a shaded band showing the range of scores achieved by the middle 60% of Year 9 students nationally. For NAP students, the most informative comparison is not the national middle band but the student’s own progress relative to the EAL/D Learning Progression phase they were assigned at enrolment. A student who entered NAP at Beginning English and achieves a Reading scale score of 440 (within “Needs additional support”) has made substantial progress, equivalent to approximately two phases of the Learning Progression, and this should be communicated clearly to parents. The Australian Government’s Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS National) can be engaged by schools at no cost to families to support parent-teacher conferences where NAPLAN results are discussed, under the Free Interpreting Service for eligible schools.
Key Actions for Families and Educators
-
Check NAPLAN exemption eligibility immediately. If the student arrived in Australia less than 12 months before the March test window, request a meeting with the school principal and EAL/D teacher to determine whether exemption under the National Protocols for Test Administration 2025 is appropriate. Do not assume exemption is automatic; a formal decision must be recorded.
-
Request the student’s EAL/D Learning Progression phase assessment. NAP providers are required to assess each student against the ACARA EAL/D Learning Progression upon entry and at exit. Obtain a copy of this documentation, as it provides the benchmark against which NAPLAN results should be interpreted.
-
Engage with NAPLAN familiarisation materials early. Access the ACARA public demonstration site (nap.edu.au) and work through sample Year 9 Reading, Writing, and Language Conventions tests with the student during the summer holiday period before the test year, focusing on test format rather than content mastery.
-
Secure a post-transition EAL/D support plan. Before the student exits the New Arrivals Program, confirm with the receiving mainstream school that an Individual EAL/D Learning Plan will be in place within four weeks of enrolment, specifying NAPLAN-informed literacy targets and allocated EAL/D teacher contact hours for Years 10–12.
-
Use TIS National for results discussions. If English proficiency limits the family’s capacity to understand NAPLAN reporting, remind the school of its obligation to book a credentialed interpreter through TIS National at no cost, citing the Department of Education’s Engaging Interpreters in Schools Policy (2023).