A single number cannot explain how a child has grown at school, how they have succeeded beyond their dreams and what further potential they hold within them.

And it's as true of the numbers that appear on a student's Higher School Certificate as it is of the numbers that appear on their NAPLAN (National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy) results.

Numbers are also inadequate when it comes to comparing the performance of one school with another.

Students do not begin their schooling lives on an equal footing and so it is unfair to make straight comparisons based on where they finish.

Students' backgrounds vary depending on their family's wealth, their parents' employment status, their parents' own education and even whether their family speaks English at home.

Again, it's how the student has matured along the journey that really matters and, as in all areas, there are some schools - and some teachers - that do a better job of fostering growth than others.

So all these considerations must be taken into account when trying to make sense of the mountains of NAPLAN data published each year on the MySchool website.

Data from the 2018 NAPLAN tests went live on the website on Wednesday morning and, as always, prompted the usual rounds of debate about the value of the results.

If it simply pits the "haves" of education with the "have nots" then it achieves nothing of worth, but if school can use the data to better inform their own teaching, then where's the harm?

What we can take from the results, though, is further confirmation of Bathurst's standing as a home of educational excellence.

Local schools topped the list of the Central West's best-performing independent and Catholic high schools and the public schools also featured prominently.

And that shouldn't surprise. Education remains our region's largest industry and there can be no better industry on which to build an economy.

Bathurst provides quality education- and real choice - from a pre-kinder level right through to Year 12, along with tertiary choices of TAFE and university.

It's a wonderful local story, and NAPLAN can on ever tell a small part of it.