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Schools lift literacy, numeracy rating

Change of culture: Maxwell Willcox, centre, with other Year 3 pupils at Glendale Primary School. Picture: Nic Ellis/The West Australian

Glendale Primary School is one of about 60 WA schools identified for making a big improvement to students' results on national tests for reading, writing, spelling and maths.

It was highlighted by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority as one of 300 schools across the country that made significant gains in NAPLAN results.

The authority's MySchool website will be updated today with last year's test results and the latest financial and enrolment figures for every school in the country.

ACARA general manager for assessment Stanley Rabinowitz said high-performing schools were not just those that had top scores but also those that showed bigger than expected improvements in students' achievements between year groups.

Schools were deemed "high-gain" if students made bigger than average progress in literacy or numeracy in the two years between being tested in Years 3 and 5 or between Years 7 and 9.

Glendale Primary, in Hamersley, surged ahead on both measures, which principal Steven Noble attributed to a change in the school's culture in the past four years.

As well as dedicating 90 minutes every morning to numeracy and literacy, Mr Noble said teachers had one day a week to work together in teams while their students did specialist subjects such as sport or music.

ACARA said research on MySchool revealed that parents liked having access to a central source of school data.