Georgia’s Year 9 NAPLAN test has been lost in the system 06:01

Now here's a question for you. If you've got kids or grandkids who've sat the NAPLAN tests, the compulsory tests that all the kids have to do, did they get some strange looking results back? Because we've uncovered that some students' exam papers, they've been lost. They've gone.

Missing completely. A year nine student named Georgia, she's been in touch with us here, driveit2gb.com, and she goes to Holsworthy High School in our southwest. Now, Georgia's best subject is generally writing. Writing is Georgia's best subject. But when she got her marks back from her writing exam from NAPLAN, she was at the bottom of the scale. So she got one of the worst results she could possibly get.

And at the bottom of the results page, it said this, quote, your child was present for this test, but did not complete any part of this test. Well, Georgia knows that's not true. She was sitting there. She did the test.

Anyway, 131873, if this has happened to you, because we asked both the Federal Education Minister, Jason Clare, and the New South Wales Minister, Pru Carr, about this. And Pru Carr's office told us they're aware of at least one student missing a result from Holsworthy High, but they couldn't give us a reason or explain where George's exam paper has gone.

And in fact, we've been told Nessa, who run NAPLAN, said this student's word count was zero. They've stuffed this up very clearly. 14-year-old Georgia, she's on the line for us now, and her dad Bill's there too. Georgia, g'day. Hello. Now, you definitely did this test, right?

Yeah, I remember clearly what I wrote about and also we had to write about a window and it was an imaginative text. So you had to write about a window, that was the question, was it? Yeah. Okay. And how long did you spend, how many words did you roughly do? I'm not too sure. I'll say about 46 paragraphs I did and I finished it right until the last minute and I hit submit on it with all my writing there.

So I'm having a look at your results that you've got here, and it's right at the very bottom of the scale, and a whole bunch of your other NAPLAN tests, you're at the very top of the scale, so clearly something's amiss here.

Yeah, I found it really, really weird since all my other ones were at the top. And then I went to see my year advisor about it. And then he got onto it straight away, went to our NAPLAN coordinator. And then she came to me during my last period. And she said that the teachers don't get the results until a few weeks later. Because this time we get our results before the teachers. Wow.

Did you know immediately something was wrong or did you get a bit of a shock when you saw you performed so poorly in writing according to the results? I got a bit of a shock and then I noticed down at the bottom of the comment and then I found it really, really weird how I sat there forever putting my best effort into it and then it didn't get recognised. Do you do this on computer, do you, Georgia? Yeah.

Yeah, we did it all online. At the start of it, like normally at the start of each test, we would have a few hiccups and then they'll get resolved straight away. And then, yeah. Was there any hiccups on the writing test, technically? I'm pretty sure there was a hiccup for me on the writing test. I remember there was for one test. They could just bring back pen and paper, Georgia.

Yeah. Then you definitely know it's saved. So where are you now? What's your year advisor said to you and what's the NAPLAN coordinator for Holsworthy High? Are they trying to get to the bottom of it for you?

They are trying to get to the bottom of it for me. So they're waiting for the NAPLAN results to come in and then they're going to try and do something. Have any of your classmates had the same experience? I'm not too sure about classmates, but I have heard from the NAPLAN coordinator that I'm not the only one.

Okay. So you're not the only one at Holdsworthy High. I wonder if this is a more broad issue. Georgia, I really appreciate you coming on and explaining this to us and your dad, Bill, for sending us the email on your behalf. Please keep us up to date because we've alerted both Jason Clare, given it is a national test, the Federal Education Minister, but New South Wales Education Minister to Prue Carr because...

Obviously, Nessa is involved too. So I think there's some sort of remit with the New South Wales government there. So everyone who should know, knows. The problem that we've got is they don't think it's that big a deal for some reason. It's a big deal to you, right? Yeah. Okay. Let's see if we can fix it, okay?

Okay, thank you for having me. No, thank you, Georgia. Well done. Very, very well done. 14 years old there, Georgia from Holesworthy High, works her bum off, sits there and does the writing test as she's asked and all the anxiety that comes with the NAPLAN tests and the thing goes missing when she presses submit. See, what's wrong with just...

A pad, a paper, an envelope. It gets marked and you get your results. Now, oh, we've got all these fails. So we've got to have all this technology, this fancy technology to ensure that it's streamlined. And then Georgia submits it and NAPLAN reckons, oh, sorry, you didn't even do the exam. Of course you'd feel miffed about that. 131873, if you, your children or your grandchildren have had the same experience.