Option to change the PAT-R & PAT-M Norms

Please take the time to read the full message below, as changing which norms your school uses will have a significant impact on the analysis of your PAT-M & PAT-R data within SPAstandard & SPAtracker.

What are Norms?

Norming refers to the process of establishing the typical performance of a group of students on an achievement assessment at a point in time. Tests that compare an individual student's score against the scores of groups are termed norm-referenced assessments. These norms help educational stakeholders such as school leaders and teachers make informed decisions about individual students, cohorts of students, and student progress over time.

PAT-Reading & PAT-Maths Norms

There have now been four sets of norms reported by ACER.

PAT-Reading Norms

  • 2007 Norms PAT Reading (collected September 2007)/ 2004 Norms PAT Maths (collected September 2004)
  • 2016 Norms (collected October/November 2012–2014)
  • 2022 Norms (collected October/November 2019)
  • 2026 Norms (collected October/November 2024)

International norm-referenced assessments (PISA/TIMSS/PIRLS) have demonstrated long-term changes in Australian students’ reading and numeracy performance over time. This trend has generally been reflected in the updated ACER PAT norms.

Changing the Norms in SPA

Within SPA you have the option to change the norms used to analyse your students’ performance.

You can choose to analyse your results using:

  • the ‘default’ norms (2007 PAT-R / 2004 PAT-M norms), or
  • the more recent ACER norms (2026 PAT-R / PAT-M norms). 

If you would like to change which PAT-R/PAT-M norms your SPA account uses, please log in as an administrator and follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Maintain → Context → Context
  2. Under the section labelled PAT Benchmark Norms, choose which norms you would like to use by selecting the appropriate purple button
  3. Select Save
  4. Refresh your web browser 

This change will then take effect for all staff within your school.

You can change the norms at any time; however, remember that changing norms will alter the analysis and benchmark interpretation for all staff in your school.

Last modified: Wednesday, 9 September 2026, 10:20 AM