Brisbane Catholic Education Schools involved in Writer's Toolbox Pilot achieve growth rates 8 times State NAPLAN average in 12 months
Written by Writer’s Toolbox
Eight schools from Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE) involved in a pilot Writer's Toolbox programme have achieved NAPLAN growth rates eight times higher than state counterparts. The schools, a diverse mix across the Brisbane Diocese, used Writer's Toolbox to lift student writing results, as well as develop student thinking skills and confidence. At a time when teacher shortages and falling standards are being questioned, the results of this study suggest some of this decline might be reversed.
Since its release in 2008, NAPLAN numeracy and reading scores have often shown increases; this has not been the case with writing. Writing has often performed poorly, even at state level. The combined 2023 Queensland average NAPLAN writing score across all years tested (3, 5, 7, 9), as a measure of state proficiency, was 486 points. In 2024, Queensland's score rose just two points to 488.
The Brisbane Pilot
In comparison, the eight Brisbane Catholic Education schools on the Writer's Toolbox pilot programme had a 2023 combined NAPLAN score of 490. Yet, after only 12 months using the Writer's Toolbox programme, Brisbane Catholic Education schools had risen to 555 points. A lift of 65 points in just 12 months: eight times the growth rate of the state.
The highest increase for any year group in the pilot programme was Year 3, whose 7.22% increase from 2023 to 2024 occurred alongside a 0.57% decrease in State average. Years 5, 7, and 9 outperformed the state average by a factor of four to six times each. Other regions are now looking at trialling the writing programme.
The eight Brisbane Catholic Education schools in the pilot were St Mary MacKillop Primary, Birkdale, Sacred Heart Parish School, Booval, St Mary's Catholic College, Kingaroy, San Damiano College, Yarrabilba, Mary MacKillop College, Nundah, Chisholm Catholic College, Mt Maria College, Mitchelton, and St Columban's College, Caboolture.
A $20m R&D programme, Writer's Toolbox develops the critical and inventive thinking skills of the student. Scaffolds, planning tools, learning modules, and writing structures taught inside Writer's Toolbox are designed to lift a student's analytical, inferencing, evaluation, problem solving, and creativity skills. With Al engineered to teach the student how to think, students become self-directed learners, following their curiosity, engagement, and exploration.
One School's Success Story
Individual schools in the pilot programme saw pronounced results. St Columban's College in Brisbane's outer suburb of Caboolture recorded the best Year 9 NAPLAN writing scores in the history of the school.
Says St Columban's College Principal Mike Connolly: "I think this journey started for St. Columban's about four years ago when I first got to the school and I looked at the writing ability of our students at St. Columban's.
Whilst they're great students and lovely kids, their writing ability was below the national mean. My goal was to get their results up at least to the national mean or higher because I knew we had some very talented students that could actually push the levels of their writing and get more success.
The thing that sold me about the Writer's Toolbox programme was the differentiation it offered students. Sometimes when you do differentiation with students it's not a great thing and they feel bad about themselves. But with Toolbox's Al you are able to change the programme to cater for the students and give them instant feedback. They love the feedback. They love seeing their overall writing result and saying, 'Can I make this better?' And it's great to see the look on the students' faces when they actually succeed in their writing and they go, 'I really can write.' Yes, you can. Everyone can write.
Being an Edmund Rice School you'll see our motto in the hall, 'Presence, Compassion, Liberation.' Writer's Toolbox gives us all of that."