Is it doing what it was originally set out to do, are children benefiting from it and are teachers teaching as they should or only for the test.

Run by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, NAPLAN testing was carried out two weeks ago.The results will be revealed in September and subsequently published on the federal government's My School website.

For three days children in year 3, 5, 7 and 9 from all schools took part in 40 to 65-minute tests on reading, writing, language (spelling, grammar, punctuation) and numeracy.

As any principal or teacher will tell you, it has now become a significant event on the school calendar.

Weeks or even months leading up to the tests are spent teaching students on what they can expect.

This year the state government launched its own NAPLAN toolkit to help principals and teachers, and assist in analysis of student results and identify individual, group and class skill level.

According to Education Minister Nick McKim the state has one of the highest NAPLAN participation rates in the country.

In the lead-up to this month's testing it received only 95 requests for withdrawal or less than 1 per cent of the total number of students (26,000) who were expected to take part.

This is a 6 per cent reduction on last year and a 30 per cent decline on 2010.

``I support NAPLAN testing as it provides information on how our students are progressing against national minimum standards and supports improvements in teaching and students learning,'' Mr McKim said.

``However NAPLAN results should not be regarded as the only indicator of students or school performance.''