When Ziyan Lin arrived at Carlingford West public school to start year 5 this year, her school wasn’t the only thing that was new. She and her family had just migrated from China, and she barely spoke English.
Lin, 10, was thrust into one of the largest primary schools in New South Wales, one of 1,636 students on campus from foundation to year 6. But she would quickly find she wasn’t alone. Ninety-six per cent of students at Carlingford West have a language background other than English, speaking 44 different languages.
Each year, about 40 students arrive at the school after migrating to Australia. In some schools, creating a sense of belonging in such an environment could be a challenge. Here, though, teachers say it’s what makes the school thrive.
On Wednesday, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (Acara) will release a swathe of new data on the My School website about Australian schools, including annual funding, attendance and Naplan results.
Table listing a number of schools that achieved highly in Naplan testing
Carlingford West was identified by the Acara as one of 20 schools in each state that overachieved across all areas of Naplan compared with schools of similar socioeconomic backgrounds and the same starting scores in previous tests.
It scored in the top band across years 3 and 5 in all domains in 2025.
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Sonia Durney, an English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) education leader for the region, says “there’s a sense of inclusion through diversity”.
Carlingford West’s approach to schooling makes students want to come to school – the attendance rate sits at 94%, compared with 88.8% nationwide. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
“The teachers are really great at drawing on the rich experiences and backgrounds of the students in their classes and making that a part of the learning as well,” she says. “Everyone’s standing on the shoulders of giants. It’s a whole team approach.”
To cater for the demographics, Carlingford West has a large cohort of additional EAL/D teachers working alongside classroom educators, as well as EAL/D specialists to support curriculum design.
The main languages taught are Mandarin, Korean and Hindi, with extracurricular activities available in native tongue: from public speaking to poetry recitals and Korean drumming (“very noisy, but very fun,” Durney says).
Students who’ve just migrated to Australia are given extra wraparound support for their first year, and parents and grandparents of children at the school are also offered free English lessons outside school hours.
For Lin, that meant a buddy system with native speakers, and intensive work with her classroom and EAL/D teacher until, in term three, another Mandarin speaker arrived, and she transitioned to become a mentor for her.
‘Relationship building is really core and central as well’: the assistant principal for year 4, Lisa Roberts. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
The assistant principal for year 4, Lisa Roberts, says the school operates as a “tightly run ship”. Every grade has an assistant principal who builds teaching and learning programs and works alongside teachers.
The whole school regularly holds assessments to identify areas of strength and weakness, backed by explicit teaching methods like synthetic phonics, an increasingly popular method of teaching that sounds out letters in a step-by-step format, to accelerate reading comprehension.
“I often think about, in such a large school, how well we all know our students and value and acknowledge all of them, and cater to all of them, because that’s quite the challenge,” Roberts says.
“As much as learning, relationship building is really core and central as well.”
It makes students want to come to school – the attendance rate, which measures the number of actual full-time equivalent student-days attended by full-time students sits at 94%, compared with 88.8% nationwide.
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Word of mouth has also boosted numbers. Carlingford West now has one of the largest number of Mongolian students in NSW after a couple of families moved to the area in 2020, and kept recommending the school to their network of friends.
The assistant principal for year 5, Marta Piwonski, says this year’s top results felt more motivating than validating.
“We’re always looking at where we can improve,” she says. “We have high expectations here – we encourage our students to develop that love of learning and make sure programs are engaging and relevant.”
Year 5 student Vishrath Puskuri, who has dreams of becoming a soccer player or an engineer. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
Year 5 student Vishrath Puskuri says his favourite thing about his school is the high standards, which means students “can keep reaching for higher goals”.
“They keep on pushing us, but not push us too much that we get struggle and stress,” he says. “They just push us to how much we can do, because the motto of Carlingford West is ‘do the best you can’.”
Andrew Li, also in year 5, loves all the places to explore, like the library, where you can “just read and relax”, and the classroom, where students “store our brains with information”.
Year 5 student Andrew Li, who hopes to secure a highly coveted ‘key badge’, which is earned by showing good citizenship and following school rules. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
One day, Puskuri wants to be a soccer player or an engineer. Li wants to be a musician, while Mishael Don, who arrived last year in year 4, wants to be a lawyer.
Until then, they will soak up their final year of primary school by studying hard – they all want to get in to nearby selective schools. But before then, there are other goals.
Li wants to secure a highly coveted “key badge” that students can wear on the playground if they’ve achieved keys throughout the years for following school rules and showing good citizenship.
And Don just wants to “make memories”. “The teachers give me a lot of motivation, because they believe in us,” she says. “I want to take every opportunity, because I really like this school, and I only have one year left.”
