Supporting Literacy Through Every Stage of the NAPLAN and OLNA Journey with Education Perfect
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EP Drives Literacy Success at The King’s College
Teachers at The King’s College, in Wellard, Western Australia (WA), have been on a mission: to raise literacy levels, embed a culture of practice and revision, and help every student cross the critical threshold for post-school success. Education Perfect (EP) has been a key tool in achieving that mission.
About The King’s College
The King’s College is a growing K–12 Christian school located in a fast-developing, industrial corridor south of Perth. With nearly 1,000 students, the school serves a working-class community that is increasingly diverse, with many families of Indian, Filipino, Sudanese, Zimbabwean and South African background. Around 40% of students speak English as an additional language or dialect (EALD), and the school is committed to supporting these learners with targeted resources and interventions.
Supporting NAPLAN and OLNA Preparation
At The King’s College, the stakes for literacy are high. NAPLAN is the national checkpoint, but in WA, students must pass the Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (OLNA) to graduate with the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE). For the school’s largely vocational cohort, this is crucial.
Head of English, Ray Andrew, shared, “We have approximately 120 students in a year group, and only about fifteen go to university through the traditional ATAR pathway. For the rest, passing OLNA is essential for getting into alternative pathways to university such as the Murdoch Flexitrack programme, or opening doors to TAFE or trades.”
Drawing on his prior experience of using EP at another school, Ray set out to embed EP into the fabric of teaching and learning in the English Department to support students, including those with EALD, achieve their literacy and career goals.
Building a Culture of Consistent Practice
EP is not new to The King’s College but was not previously used “in a particularly coherent fashion.” Teachers often used it for casual relief or ad hoc activities. “We wanted to develop a culture of consistent practice.”
“A lot of our families work shifts and students were just gaming at home. We started to issue EP homework weekly across Years 7–10 and for our foundation students in Years 11–12. The following year we launched an ‘EP grade’ based on completion and accuracy. There was a lot of resistance to homework at first, but that’s now reduced. Students expect to do EP, sometimes they do it in class, sometimes at home.”
Ray believes part of EP’s success lies in how well it suits the student cohort.
“Our kids like the formatting, it’s intuitive. They like working at their own pace. It’s online, and many are gamers, so it feels natural. For them, EP is like muscle memory. It’s what learning looks like in today’s world.”
Students also appreciate the change in teacher dynamics.
“They love that they get to work quietly and independently. They see it as a treat: ‘We don’t have to listen to the teacher talk throughout the lesson!’”
Building Confidence and Skills Aligned to NAPLAN and OLNA
The English Department knew that with a culture of consistent skills-based learning established, students’ capability and confidence around testing would grow.
“EP’s content is aligned with the requirements of both NAPLAN and OLNA. Activities focus on the kinds of tasks students will see in both assessments, from narrative writing to reading comprehension and information extraction.”
Recognising the importance of OLNA for their students, The King’s College obtained special permission to run OLNA testing at the end of Year 9, instead of waiting until Year 10 as is the norm.
“This allows students to take the test while the learning in the ‘NAPLAN year’ is still fresh.”
“We run special workshops for two weeks at the end of October, then students sit the test. EP is central to these workshops, offering targeted practice tasks and diagnostic assessments to track readiness. We do EP tests three or four times before the students sit NAPLAN or OLNA. The students often say the real test is easier than they thought it would be, because they’ve practised it so extensively.”
A Platform That Works for Students and Teachers
For teachers, EP lightens the workload, particularly with automatic marking and clear reporting.
“Anything that reduces workload is gold. EP does the marking for us. Teachers are flocking to other subjects such as HASS [Humanities and Social Sciences] because there’s less marking than in English. We need to change that narrative!”
The platform also allows teachers to create high quality assessments quickly, leveraging AI and EP’s built-in tools to save time while delivering pedagogically sound tasks.
“It’s a big part of our game as teachers now. We use EP for diagnostic testing at the start of the year and for pre- and post-testing for every topic, as well as for NAPLAN, PAT and OLNA practice. It’s a no brainer. We don’t have to craft content ourselves.”
Education Perfect has played a key role alongside high-quality teaching, strong pastoral care, explicit instruction and targeted literacy programs at The King’s College.
EP is part of a multi-tiered approach, with the English Department working hand in hand with the Responsive Education (RE) Department. A Corrective Reading and Direct Instruction literacy program run by RE and an engaging English programme are working alongside EP to deliver excellent results.
The powerful tracking features in EP means valuable data is also at teachers’ fingertips: “We work closely with our RE team to access support our EALD students might be entitled to such as adjustments in measuring or accreditation. EP enables us to plot their progress as required by the Curriculum Authority.”
Real Results in Literacy
The most compelling evidence of EP’s impact? The data.
“Before we properly embedded EP, we were below the national average in reading and writing. Now we’re above it. In fact, we’re significantly above [average] for writing.”
Ray credits EP with helping students develop foundational literacy skills: “Narrative techniques, scanning for detail. These are skills they get to practise over and over in EP. And the results show.”
“Across Years 11 and 12, only a handful of students in each year are yet to pass OLNA. That’s a remarkable result given our starting point three years ago.”
Looking Ahead
The school has continued to expand its use of EP each year, and Ray is confident the trajectory will continue.
“EP is proven – it works. And we just keep increasing our subscription. I think that says it all.”
