For Australia’s school leaders and teachers alike, the latest commentary around NAPLAN results can sound like a broken record: gains in one area, plateaus in another, and a stubborn gap between students who excel and those still slipping through the cracks.
Perhaps the harder question isn't why this gap persists, but what makes a real difference in closing it.
One answer is retrieval practice – the well-evidenced principle that students retain knowledge when they’re repeatedly asked to recall it, spaced over time and given corrective feedback while mistakes are still fresh. It’s particularly important in literacy, where skills build on one another and small gaps can compound quickly.
The challenge is delivering that kind of individual practice and feedback to 30 students at once.
Where the real value gets missed
To teachers juggling heavy workloads, retrieval practice can sound like old-fashioned drilling. But Dr Jill McGuire, Group Head of Learning Innovation at Education Perfect, says the comparison overlooks where retrieval fits into how students learn.
“It’s understandable that retrieval practice can sound like old fashioned drilling, because both involve revisiting knowledge,” Dr McGuire told The Educator. “The difference lies in where retrieval sits within the learning process.”
First, said Dr McGuire, content must be taught explicitly and clearly. Retrieval then asks the student to bring that knowledge back to mind over time, helping it become more durable.
“Further practice then builds fluency, while separate application of practice helps students use what they know in unfamiliar contexts,” she said. “Retrieval is an important part of that sequence, but it does not produce application on its own.”
Dr McGuire said an important consideration here is that retrieval should also be diagnostic, as it gives teachers visibility into what students have retained, where misconceptions are forming, and what ultimately needs to be retaught.
“That makes it a form of responsive teaching, rather than repetition for its own sake,” she said. “To bring a sceptical staffroom on board, I would connect it to two practical concerns: workload and impact.”
Rather than treating retrieval as another box to tick, Dr McGuire said the priority for teachers should be practicality.
“Teachers do not need another initiative layered onto their workflow. They need approaches that provide better evidence of student understanding and make the next instructional decision clearer,” she said. “Start with a contained trial of a tool, examine the effect on learning and workload, and let the evidence build confidence.”
The line between knowledge and skill
Asked why retrieval practice seems to take hold more easily in numeracy than in literacy, particularly as reading and writing outcomes continue to slip for older students, Dr McGuire said the comparison is not quite as straightforward as it appears.
“The national picture is more mixed than a simple comparison between improving numeracy and declining literacy might suggest, with results varying across year levels and learning domains,” she said. “I would also distinguish between retrieval practice being harder to use in literacy and literacy being harder to assess through simple retrieval tasks.”
Dr McGuire said students can retrieve vocabulary, phonics, grammar and textual knowledge effectively, but the challenge grows in complex reading comprehension and writing, where quality hinges on interpretation, reasoning, structure and judgement, unlike maths, where feedback is often immediate and clear.
“In literacy, a response may be partially successful in several different ways,” she said. “Effective feedback must identify not only that something needs improvement, but whether the underlying issue is knowledge, comprehension, vocabulary, argument, structure or expression. That requires time and considerable teacher expertise.”
McGuire said the challenge then is to use retrieval effectively for the foundational, or base knowledge students need without reducing literacy to what is easiest to test or mark.
“Students need explicit teaching, rich content, purposeful discussion and opportunities to apply their knowledge through sustained reading and writing.”
Beyond the NAPLAN numbers
When it comes to the single change that would move the needle most on literacy and numeracy over the next decade, McGuire's answer has less to do with system-level measurement and more to do with what happens in the classroom day to day.
“If I had to choose one priority it would be investing in what teachers do in the classroom day to day,” she said. “That means ensuring teachers have access to a coherent, well sequenced curriculum, a strong understanding of the content they are teaching and the time and support to respond to what students do, and do not understand.”
McGuire said while assessment data such as NAPLAN is valuable at a system level because it identifies patterns in achievement and disadvantage, measurement alone does not improve learning.
“Progress happens through what takes place in the classroom: how clearly new content is explained, how carefully it is sequenced, the questions teachers ask, the practice students complete and what is retaught, and when,” she said.
“Timely feedback is a crucial part of this process, but it’s only effective when grounded in strong teaching and clear learning goals.”
McGuire said technology can help reduce the admin burden or make patterns in student understanding more visible, but it should always follow the instructional approach – not lead it.
“It is there to support teachers' professional judgement, but should never be a substitute for it.”