It is the time of the year when we are required to submit our achievement data to the Ministry of Education for the previous year – i.e. 2013. This data is our overall assessment of achievement in relation to National Standards and the Ministry uses this to assess how we are performing in relation to other schools of similar size and decile. The information is published on the Education Counts Website and the media use this to construct league tables of schools. This year we have a scheduled visit from the Education Review Office (ERO) in the first week of April. For the first time this year, they too will use this data from the website to assess our performance.
There is great debate and a whole lot of discussion to be had about whether this data is robust enough to be used in this way and whether the standards on which it is based is a precise enough instrument to be using. That is a continuing discussion we are having in the education sector. Whether we like it or not, and whether it can be justified or not in assessment or in educational terms, this is the current environment we operate in.
So, what does our data look like? Here is a table that shows you the overall distribution of our students in reading, writing and mathematics in relations to National Standards:
| 2013 SUMMARY OF SCHOOL DATA AGAINST NATIONAL STANDARDS | |||||
| SNELLS BEACH SCHOOL as at November 2013 | |||||
| ALL STUDENTS | Well below | Below | At | Above | Total |
| N = 201 | |||||
| Reading | 26 (13%) | 26 (13%) | 45 (22%) | 104 (52%) | 201 |
| Writing | 6 (3%) | 21 (10%) | 58 (29%) | 116 (58%) | 201 |
| Maths | 15 (7%) | 44 (22%) | 96 (48%) | 46 (23%) | 201 |
You will see from this that our areas of strength are reading and writing, where we have 74% (reading) and 87% (writing) of all students achieving at or above the national standards expected levels. We celebrate these results and believe they are a result of concentrated focus on literacy over the last couple of years and the hard work of teachers to lift our levels. The maths data is not quite as positive, and this is an area that we will be focusing on in 2013 as a result.
Our School Charter with the 2014 annual plan, additional information and a detailed analysis of our performance last year is available from the school office and will be posted to our website shortly. Please ask if you would like to have a copy.
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