Curriculum Reference Stage: Stages 2 to 5 (Years 3 to 9 depending on test) Focus Area: Assessment literacy for students, parents, and tutors Outcome Code: General capability: Literacy (cross-curriculum). To Verify. Administering Bodies: NAPLAN by ACARA. ICAS by UNSW Global.
Why Parents Get These Two Tests Mixed Up
There is a very specific moment where the confusion starts. It is usually sometime in the second half of the school year, when a family has received a NAPLAN report in the mail and an ICAS certificate from the school, and is now sitting at the kitchen table trying to work out whether the two results are telling them the same thing or something different.
They look like they should be comparable. Both tests cover English and mathematics. Both are taken at school. Both produce a result that seems to say something about how well a child is doing. So parents do what makes sense: they put them side by side and try to read them together.
The problem is that putting them side by side does not work, because the two tests are not measuring the same thing. One is asking whether a child has met a minimum national standard. The other is asking where a child ranks in a competitive group of students who are probably already ahead of the pack. These are genuinely different questions, and a result that looks disappointing on one scale can be entirely reasonable on the other once you understand what you are actually looking at.
This guide works through both assessments clearly. It is written for parents who want to understand what each result means, for students who want to know what they are walking into, and for tutors who need to give accurate advice when families ask which test matters more and why.
Terms Worth Knowing
Five terms come up repeatedly when discussing these assessments. Everything else will be explained as it becomes relevant.
National Minimum Standard (NMS): The NAPLAN floor. If a student scores below this, the test is saying they have not yet demonstrated the minimum literacy or numeracy skills expected for that year level. It is a specific curriculum signal, not a general judgement.
Adaptive testing: NAPLAN Online adjusts question difficulty as a student works through the test. Answer correctly and the next question is harder. Answer incorrectly and it gets easier. Two students sitting NAPLAN on the same day may answer completely different questions. Their scores are still comparable because the scoring accounts for difficulty. Worth telling students before test day so they are not thrown off when a question feels unexpectedly hard or easy.
Percentile: A ranking, not a score. A student in the 80th percentile scored higher than 80 per cent of the comparison group. Not 80 per cent of questions correct. The distinction matters when reading ICAS results.
Self-selected comparison group: Students who sit ICAS do so because their families chose to enter them, usually because they are academically confident. The ICAS comparison group is not representative of all Year 5 students in Australia. It skews toward students who are already performing well. This changes what a ranking within that group actually means.
Certificate level: The ICAS result format. Five levels: High Distinction, Distinction, Credit, Merit, Participation. These are competitive rankings within the ICAS sitting group, not curriculum benchmarks.
What NAPLAN Is Actually For
NAPLAN stands for the National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy. It runs every March. Every student in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9 sits it. Parents can withdraw their child by written request, but almost nobody does.
The point of NAPLAN is not to rank children or identify the best students. The federal government designed it to answer one question at population scale: are Australian students meeting minimum literacy and numeracy standards at each year level? It is a floor check, not a ceiling measure.
This is worth sitting with for a moment, because it changes how you read the results. When NAPLAN says a student is in the Strong band, it is not saying they are a strong student in any general sense. It is saying they are comfortably above the minimum standard for their year level on the specific skills the test covers that day. When it says Exceeding, it means they are well above that standard. When it says Developing, it means they are above the minimum but not by much. When it says Needs Additional Support, it means they have not yet demonstrated the minimum expected at that year level, which is a signal worth taking seriously.
NAPLAN covers four areas: Reading, Writing, Conventions of Language (spelling, grammar, punctuation), and Numeracy. One thing that catches parents off guard is that a child who is a confident reader can still score in the Developing band for Conventions of Language. Reading comprehension and spelling are separate skills that develop at different rates. NAPLAN separates them, which is one of the genuinely useful things about the way it is structured.
Since 2023, NAPLAN has been fully online in NSW and uses adaptive testing. The adaptive format is worth explaining to students before they sit it. If a question feels surprisingly hard, it probably means the previous answer was correct. If it feels surprisingly easy, it may mean the previous one was wrong. This is not the test malfunctioning. It is the test doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
Results come back in mid-year. Each student’s score sits on a proficiency scale that runs consistently across all year levels, which means a Year 3 score and a Year 5 score can be placed on the same line and compared directly. For families with children sitting multiple sittings over the years, this is one of the most useful things NAPLAN produces: actual evidence of whether skills are growing.
What ICAS Is Actually For
ICAS stands for International Competitions and Assessments for Schools. It is run by UNSW Global, which is a commercial organisation, not a government body. Schools choose whether to offer it. Families choose whether to enter their child and pay the entry fee per subject.
The purpose is different from NAPLAN in a way that matters a great deal. ICAS is not measuring whether students have met a standard. It is a competition. The questions are deliberately harder than the standard curriculum, and the top award, a High Distinction, goes to approximately the top one per cent of students who sit that paper nationally. Most students who sit ICAS will not receive a High Distinction. A significant proportion will receive a Merit or Participation certificate. This is not a failure of those students. It is how the test is calibrated.
ICAS covers more subjects than NAPLAN. English and Mathematics are available, as they are in NAPLAN, but ICAS also offers Science, Digital Technologies, and a separate Spelling Bee assessment. Families who want an external benchmark in science have no NAPLAN equivalent, which is one reason ICAS attracts families whose children are interested in those areas.
The ICAS test is not adaptive. Every student at a given year level answers the same questions in the same order. Results come back as a certificate at one of five levels, along with a numerical score and a national ranking. The comparison is against all students who sat the same paper, which as discussed above is a self-selected group skewing toward academically confident students.
One thing to understand before looking at any ICAS result: the certificate levels are not equivalent to school grades or NAPLAN bands. A Participation certificate, which sits at the bottom of the five levels, does not mean a student failed or is behind. It means they placed in the lower half of a voluntary above-curriculum competition. A student can score in the Developing band on NAPLAN and receive a Participation on ICAS and these two results are actually telling you the same thing: this student is working to consolidate foundational skills and is not yet ready to compete above the curriculum level. That is useful information. It is not a cause for alarm on both fronts simultaneously.
The Comparison That Trips People Up
The single most common misinterpretation Sprouts tutors encounter is parents reading an ICAS Participation result as equivalent to a NAPLAN below-NMS result. They are not equivalent. The NAPLAN below-NMS result is a curriculum signal. It means a specific thing about foundational skills and typically triggers a support response. The ICAS Participation result is a competitive ranking in a group of academically self-selected students on a test that is harder than the curriculum. It does not signal a curriculum gap.
The reverse misinterpretation also happens. A parent whose child scores Exceeding on NAPLAN sometimes expects a High Distinction on ICAS to follow logically. It does not. NAPLAN Exceeding means a student is well above the curriculum standard for their year level. ICAS High Distinction means a student placed in the top one per cent of a competitive national cohort on questions designed to stretch beyond the curriculum. These are not the same bar. A student can comfortably exceed NAPLAN expectations and receive a Credit on ICAS, and this combination makes complete sense once you understand what each result is actually measuring.
The cleaner way to think about it: NAPLAN tells you whether the foundation is solid. ICAS tells you how a student performs when pushed beyond the foundation. You need both pieces of information to get a useful picture, and neither one substitutes for the other.
Reading Three Real Scenarios
The three situations below are ones Sprouts tutors encounter regularly. Work through each one and think about what the result combination actually means before reading the explanation.
Priya, Year 5: ICAS Distinction, NAPLAN Strong
Priya’s ICAS English result placed her in approximately the top ten per cent nationally. Her NAPLAN Reading came back in the Strong band.
Some parents looking at this combination feel vaguely unsatisfied. The ICAS result sounds impressive, so why is the NAPLAN not in the top band? The answer is that these two results are measuring different things on different scales, and a student performing in the top ten per cent of a competitive above-curriculum cohort can absolutely sit in the Strong rather than Exceeding band on a curriculum benchmark. The results are consistent. Priya is a capable reader performing well on both measures. There is nothing to explain away.
James, Year 7: NAPLAN Exceeding, ICAS Credit
James scored in the Exceeding band on NAPLAN Numeracy. His ICAS Mathematics result was a Credit, placing him in approximately the top twenty-five per cent of students who sat the paper.
This is a combination that sometimes confuses parents who expected the ICAS result to match the NAPLAN one. It does not need to. Exceeding on NAPLAN means James is well above curriculum expectations. Credit on ICAS means he is in the top quarter of a self-selected academically confident cohort on harder-than-curriculum content. These results are telling a coherent story: James has strong foundations and is performing competitively on extension material, but he is not yet in the top tier of the competitive group. Extension work is the right next step. Both results support that conclusion.
Lena, Year 3: NAPLAN Below NMS, Did Not Sit ICAS
Lena’s NAPLAN Reading came back below the National Minimum Standard. Her school does not offer ICAS.
Below the NMS is the result that warrants the most direct response. It does not mean Lena is struggling in every area, and it does not mean she will always find reading difficult. It means that at this point in Year 3, her demonstrated reading skills have not yet reached the minimum standard expected by the national curriculum. The right next step is a conversation with her teacher about which specific areas fell below the NMS, what the school is already doing, and whether structured tutoring focused on identified gaps would help.
ICAS is not the right tool for Lena right now. Entering a student who needs foundational consolidation into an above-curriculum competition is not going to produce useful information, and a Participation result for a student in Lena’s position would not tell her family anything they do not already know. Targeted curriculum-aligned support is the priority.
Text Analysis
Read the passage below carefully. It comes from a parent reflecting on the year their daughter sat both assessments for the first time. Answer the questions that follow.
When my daughter’s NAPLAN results arrived in July, I did not know what to make of them. She was in the Strong band for Reading and the Developing band for Conventions of Language. Her teacher had always said she was a good reader, so the Strong result made sense. But Developing for spelling and punctuation was a surprise. I had assumed she was fine across the board.
We entered her in ICAS English the same year. She received a Merit certificate. I initially felt disappointed because I had expected better. But when I looked more carefully at what Merit actually means, I realised she had placed in the top fifty per cent of students nationally on a test that is deliberately harder than her school curriculum. That reframing changed how I felt about the result completely.
What I wish someone had told me earlier: NAPLAN and ICAS are not the same kind of measurement. One tells you whether your child has the basics. The other tells you where they sit in a competitive field. Both pieces of information are useful. Neither one alone tells you everything you need to know.
Question 1 What surprised the parent about the NAPLAN results, and why might that surprise be common among parents?
Question 2 What caused the parent to feel disappointed with the ICAS Merit result? What specific information changed their interpretation?
Question 3 “One tells you whether your child has the basics. The other tells you where they sit in a competitive field.” Which assessment does each description refer to? How can you tell from the passage?
Question 4 By the end of the passage, what is the parent’s view of using both assessments together? Use at least two pieces of evidence from the text.
Question 5 The parent says they wish someone had told them earlier that NAPLAN and ICAS are not the same kind of measurement. What does this suggest about the information parents typically receive when their children sit both tests?
Guided Practice
Exercise 1
For each statement below, write NAPLAN, ICAS, or Both.
- Taken by all students in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9. ______
- The top result goes to approximately the top one per cent of sitters. ______
- Results include a comparison to a national minimum standard. ______
- Covers Science and Digital Technologies as well as English and Mathematics. ______
- Uses adaptive testing so different students may answer different questions. ______
- Available from Year 2 through to Year 10. ______
- Results are reported as proficiency bands. ______
- Families pay an entry fee per subject. ______
Exercise 2
A Year 7 student received a Developing band on NAPLAN Reading and a Participation certificate on ICAS English. Use the information from this guide to answer the following.
What does the NAPLAN Developing result tell you about this student? ______
What does the ICAS Participation result tell you? ______
Do these two results contradict each other, or are they consistent? ______
What would be the most useful next step for this student? ______
Exercise 3
A parent has three goals. For each one, identify which assessment is better suited to provide the information they need and give one reason why.
Goal 1: Find out whether my child is meeting the minimum Year 5 literacy expectations set by the national curriculum. Assessment: ______ Reason: ______
Goal 2: Find out how my child ranks among academically confident students nationally in mathematics. Assessment: ______ Reason: ______
Goal 3: Find out whether my child is ready to begin a new topic in their current class. Assessment: ______ Reason: ______
Exercise 4
Find the error in the statement below and write a corrected version.
My son received a Participation certificate on ICAS Mathematics. This means he failed the test and is behind in maths at school.
The error: ______
Corrected version: ______
Reinforcement Practice
Task 1 A parent tells you their daughter scored Exceeding on NAPLAN, so she should easily receive a High Distinction on ICAS. In two to three sentences, explain why this reasoning does not hold.
Task 2 Correct the following statement without looking back at the guide.
NAPLAN identifies the most academically gifted students in Australia.
Task 3 A student received a Credit on ICAS Mathematics and a Strong band on NAPLAN Numeracy. Without using the word “consistent,” write two sentences explaining what these two results suggest together.
Task 4 A family asks whether they should enter their Year 4 child in ICAS. The child’s teacher describes them as working at grade level. Write three sentences of genuine advice. Do not use the phrase “it depends.”
Common Mistakes
Mistake 1: Treating Participation on ICAS and below-NMS on NAPLAN as equivalent
This is the most damaging misinterpretation because it leads families to respond to both results in the same way, when the appropriate responses are quite different. A NAPLAN result below the National Minimum Standard is a curriculum signal. The school has a formal response process for it. It means foundational skills need attention.
An ICAS Participation result is a competitive ranking in a voluntary group of self-selected students on a test that is harder than the curriculum. There is no minimum standard being assessed. There is no curriculum gap being flagged. A student who receives a Participation certificate has not failed anything. Conflating these two results typically leads to unnecessary alarm on the ICAS side and sometimes, paradoxically, insufficient attention to the NAPLAN side because the two get lumped together as “bad results.”
Mistake 2: Expecting NAPLAN Exceeding to predict ICAS High Distinction
The logic seems reasonable: both sound like top results. But the bar for each is completely different. NAPLAN Exceeding means a student is performing well above the national curriculum standard for their year level on questions calibrated to that standard. ICAS High Distinction means a student placed in the top one per cent of a self-selected competitive cohort on questions designed to go beyond the curriculum. A student can sit comfortably in the Exceeding band on NAPLAN and receive a Credit or Merit on ICAS, and this is not a discrepancy requiring investigation. It is what two different measurement purposes produce when applied to the same student.
Mistake 3: Using class NAPLAN averages to judge teacher performance
NAPLAN class results are affected by factors that have nothing to do with teaching quality: the proportion of students with identified learning needs, the proportion for whom English is an additional language, the socioeconomic profile of the cohort, and the foundational skills students brought into that year level from the year before. A class that scores below the state average may be a class that has made strong progress from a lower starting point. One year’s cohort data does not tell you whether the teaching was good. It tells you where that specific group of students sat on a national scale at a specific point in time.
Moving to Practice
The worksheet that follows will ask you to apply what you have worked through here across a range of question types. Some questions have clear right answers. Others will ask you to interpret a situation and explain your reasoning. Take your time with the second type. The quality of the explanation matters as much as the conclusion you reach.
