The 25 WA schools that made list of high-performers based on NAPLAN results

These are the WA schools that have achieved results above expectations on this year’s national reading and writing tests. The list of 25 schools have been highlighted by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority for achieving exceptional results when compared to schools across the country with a similar socio-educational standing. From today, parents can log on to the updated MySchool website to see how every school performed on this year’s assessments. While ACARA discourages league tables that rank top-performing schools, it has named those that have punched above their weight. Campbell Primary School in Canning Vale is one of three schools to make WA’s list of stand-out performers for the first time. The school triumphed despite a high level of transiency — with many students leaving or joining during the year — and a big proportion of children who start pre-primary unable to speak English. Proud principal Lynne Bates, who has led the school for 10 years, credited the school’s results to her teachers’ “unrelenting focus” on students’ improvement and progress. She said all teachers use the same evidence-based programs and work together in teams to promote “a sense of collective responsibility”. “So all teachers in Year 3 know all students in Year 3,” she said. “And their mission and purpose is to improve every single child’s learning.” Teachers test children before they start teaching a concept, to see what they already know and what to focus on, then test them again after they’ve taught it. Any students who do not reach a C grade are pulled out for intervention while those who excel are put into extension groups. “It really does set us apart,” Ms Bates said. “It brings tears to my eyes watching my staff in teams. I never would have thought we could achieve what we have achieved.” “It’s a great affirmation for the strength of the work that happens at the school.” Across the country, nearly 1.3 million children in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 sat the NAPLAN tests in March in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy. ACARA identified a small group of schools in each State that have done better than expected in the past two years. It means students in those schools consistently achieved above-average literacy and numeracy results compared with students from similar socio-educational backgrounds. Billed as “schools making a difference”, they were selected based on their percentage of “green cells” shown on the MySchool website, compared to red or white. Green cells indicate students achieved above-average results when compared with pupils of similar backgrounds at other schools. White cells means their results are on a par with others, while pink or red shows their results are below similar schools. The list contains schools with the highest percentages of green cells for the past two years combined. Academically selective schools were excluded. At Campbell PS, eight out of 10 possible cells were shaded green this year — including four dark green indicating it was “well above” average for Year 5 writing, spelling and grammar — and all 10 were green last year. The other schools to make the high-performers list for the first time this year were Kelmscott Senior High School and Mount Barker Community College, where all Year 9 results were above those of students at similar schools. Kelmscott principal Mark Jeffery said the strong result was a credit to staff, students and community for their “dedication to continuous improvement”. Baynton West Primary School in Karratha, the only remote school to make the list, achieved a laudable nine out of 10 green cells. WA’s list included 19 public schools, five independent schools and one Catholic school. ACARA chief executive Stephen Gniel said MySchool was the only website with detailed information on 10,000 Australian schools. “We need to know how our schools are doing, but it is also important that this information is presented in a way that considers the individual circumstances of a school, especially its level of socio-educational advantage, which our reporting takes into account,” he said. “As well as its NAPLAN results, you can also explore attendance rates, as well as financial information for 2023, including funding levels and sources. “This helps parents and carers understand the full value and quality of a school, inclusive of NAPLAN results within the broader context in which each school operates.” Results of this year’s NAPLAN tests released in August showed no meaningful improvement on last year’s, when reporting methods changed and tough new proficiency benchmarks were set. They revealed around 30 per cent of WA children were unable to read, write or solve maths problems at the basic level expected for their age.