The reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy skills of students across Australia are put to the test annually for people in Year 3, 5, 7, and 9.

Results were recently released for the 2017 NAPLAN test, and All Saints’ College students from Year 9 were the only group of students across Bathurst to be classified as ‘substantially above’ all Australian students in all five testing areas.

The group of students has managed to do the same thing every year since they first took the test in 2011 when they were in Year 3.

The only blimp on the students’ perfect record was in 2013, when they were in Year 5, when they were classified as ‘above’ rather than ‘substantially above’.

Ralph Nicholls and Bridget Ellis are among this high-achieving cohort and they said the secret to doing well in NAPLAN was not to get too stressed.

“Most of the time all the information is on the page, don’t over-complicate things,” Bridget said.

Ralph and Bridget, who are now in Year 10, are both keen students and agree that commerce is their favourite subject.

“It’s good fun because we’ve got a good teacher,” Ralph said.

While Bridget said learning commerce had helped her to “understand some of the segments in the news”.

All Saints’ College Independent Learning Centre head Phil Cant praised the cohort’s efforts in achieving such consistent high results.

“They’re already a bright group to start with and I think part of this is the teaching that’s provided here,” he said.

While acknowledging that NAPLAN was not the only testing the college’s students undertook, he said the results do help tailor teaching methods.

“We can individualise learning and it allows you to work with students who are having trouble in a particular areas or excelling in an area,” Mr Cant said.

Mr Cant said the college used evidence-based teaching strategies and explicit teaching which builds on information the students already understood.

The full NAPLAN results from 2017 are available for every individual school online by visiting the My Schools website.