The My School government website

[AliBaby]

I think it's a silly site. Basically, all you are comparing is how well the students performed in a test on one day of the school year. How well students perform in tests has NOTHING to do with how 'well' the teachers teach, or how 'good' a school is. A school with above average results can just mean that most of the students take tests well. A school with below acverage results doesn't mean that the students aren't learning, or that teachers are ineffective. It can just means that the students don't take tests well.

Which I'm pretty sure is the 'outrage'.

Definitely take the ratings with a grain of salt.

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Whilst I agree with parents having more knowledge in the their choices they make for their children, these league tables and this website is the wrong way to go about it.

I think parents would be better informed if they speak to other parents at the school to see how they view the school, speak to the children that attend the school to get their opinions, and speak to staff at a school.

This puts so much pressure on students. Imagine how those kids feel who were down the bottom of the league tables that have been created feel. Way to lift their already fragile self esteems. Your results are the worst in the state, etc.

[Astrolady]

The stats are pretty crap. We had a huge meeting about it with our prinicipal late last year, and there is so much that doesn't get taken into account. She was not happy with it as well as a lot of other school prinicipal she knows. Considering it is only based on Naplan results is stupid as well. More to the school than years 3 5 7 and 9

[MissM]

I have to admit, I love the site. I think it gives parents the knowledge to choose a school for their child.

The 2 schools that I went to (Primary & High school) were RED!! (So totally to be expected) DP's schools were also red!

DD goes to a private school - and for the fee's we pay each year I expect the results to be good. After all this is just the BASIC reading writing numeracy & gram! If kids are not learning the basics, they will fall through the cracks and this is where the issue starts. My cousin goes to a public school (the one i went to as a child) and when my DD was in year 1 they were doing the same work! (My cuz is a grade above DD) DD also had a few small issues with learning how to tell the time (last year - which was grade 2), fractions and working out her change when she bought something, she understood what she had to do and with intervention with a support group for a month and me giving her examples of using fractions etc in everyday living helped her

I also agree that you need to go to the school and see for yourself what the school 'feels' like. I know from the moment I went into DD's school it was so warm and welcoming. The entire staff @ DD's school GENUINELY care about their wellbeing & education, it's not just a pay packet for them!

I am also the first person to stand up for the public/state schools regarding the funding. Parents in private schools pay a substantial amount (DD's school covers ALL excursions, textbooks, teachers wages, stationary etc, we only need to buy her uniforms ) each year and not everyone can afford to send their children to a private school, and the kids should not be behind just because they go to a public school! eeach child deserves to have a good education (and WTH is the government thinking by funding a private school 42 mil when it only has 16 kids!?!?!?!?!?!? I am sure there are many other public schools that could have used that money!)

The other thing that also annoyed me - when the 'school stimulus' was given DD's school started the work straight away - the public school down the road has only just begun!! i doubt they were given as much money as DD's school which is so unfair.

Sorry for the lonnnnnnnnnng post - but thats my 2 cents

[*Ali*]

I really dont like it- but obviously I am sitting on the other side of the fence because I am a teacher.

After all this is just the BASIC reading writing numeracy & gram! If kids are not learning the basics, they will fall through the cracks and this is where the issue starts

Actually the issues usually arise BEFORE these test are sat, alot the children in the poor performing schools come with close to 0 pre knowledge, the dont own books, they dont go to the library, some come from parents with poor education, most of these school are in low socio economic areas etc. Kindy and pre - primary teachers are having to have to do teaching that children should already come to school with, so in most cases children in these schools start out 2 years behind.

What really infuriates me is that people are going to make judgements about where they send there children based on these results- make judgements about the sort of programs deliever in that school, the type of teachers in that school, etc. and it is false. I work in a school that did not perform well at all, does that mean I am a bad teacher- HELL NO, I am a damn good teacher, I am committed, and I work my ar$e off to improve the education of those children. Where is that reflected? Where do parents get to see the program that we are implementing to improve the targets for thse children, where do parents get to see all the wonderful things that teachers in these schools are doing for these kids?

These are Standardised Tests-you are asking every year 3, 5, 7, 9 student across the ENTIRE country to sit the same test, regardless of their learning style, background, health on the day etc and you are making judgements about a school based on the results.

[Just Me]

I have looked at a few of the schools in Townsville and basically they show any of the public schools are falling well below average and most of the private schools are sitting on average. What it doesn't say is that private schools have the option to pick their students where public schools have to take any student that presents to them in their particular catchment area (if one exists).

My husband went to what would be regarded the best private school in Townsville and he said they worked the system as far as the QCS goes to ensure students sitting for it would get the best overall results - they kicked kids out of the school if they weren't performing to a standard and prevented others from sitting the QCS if it was perceived that they would bring the overall standard down.

I imagine that most schools do the same to manipulate their schools standing in the standard tests reflected by the My School website. All this data says to me is that private schools are very good at working the system to reflect what the parents that pay for these schools expect it to reflect.

I was actually surprised how badly some of the schools in Townsville did as far as statistics - especially in the absences. I have taught in Townsville for a couple of years (I have done most of my teaching in Brisbane) and I have had classes where there are children that are absent from school for most of the year (I am talking attendance rates of about 20 days a year, if you're lucky). This is not uncommon in Townsville schools. These kids are still accounted for in the testing although they have hardly attended school and their results affect the results of the whole school. Parents of students like this do not pay for them to attend private school as it is not something they value (and most private schools wouldn't accept them anyway) and they have to be enrolled somewhere by law (by law they should also be attending but that is very difficult) so they are enrolled in public schools who have to include their results with the other students.

The other point that I feel the need to make about these sorts of results - I have always found the idea of grading numeracy and literacy a bit comical. Like anything above 85% correct is a Very High (or an A) anything 65% - 85% is a High (or a B), anything 50% - 65% is a Sound (or a C - average). Honestly, if a child is only getting 50% of all maths questions right, I really do question competency. I think with numeracy and literacy, you either understand it or you don't. I really think it would be much better to rate kids on competency rather than a grading system. I think kids need to consistently demostrate ability to complete numeracy and literacy tasks in order to be graded competent. I think anything that falls short of competent should be labelled 'not yet competent' with the assumption that they will soon be competent, just not yet.

I think it is also truly revolting to judge a teachers' ability to teach on information on these websites. I have been to schools where teachers are running teeth brushing programs as part of a state government initiative to deal with the high level of tooth decay in those communities. Part of the daily classroom activity is that all students brush their teeth twice a day using their government issued toothbrush and toothpaste. These students probably weren't testing to the same level as kids their ages in other schools, but their teachers were working pretty hard and they are good teachers. They just have a lot of other issues that interfere with their students' ability to learn that need to be addressed before anything more could happen.

This website makes judgements that in many ways assumes that all kids start school on equal footing and they are all judged in exactly the same way.

I am aware of Julia Gillards reasoning behind publishing the results, I don't understand her need to make this information public. If she wants to use it to direct government funding then she should do that, I just don't understand why it has to be so public. She also stated on an interview for 'Insight' late last year that the information in this website could be used to close down persistently under performing schools - that just makes me sick! There is so much more to making a school great than a group of collective results that don't accurately demonstrate real student learning.

I had a look around this website and felt truly devastated for the the principals, teachers, students and parents of some of the schools I looked at. I have been in their schools, worked in some of these schools and I know how hard they all work and how much they put into making their school great and I found them great, supportive places to be where I thought the students were taught well with a wide variety of highly engaging activities and this website reflected none of that. It made these schools look like failures and it is just not true.

How can we expect kids to take pride in their school and value their place of education when there are websites such as these wrongly demonstrate that they are failing on so many levels? We want kids to attend school and see it as valuable - this is not the way to achieve it!

[toomanyshoes]

I personally think its a great tool to give parents more information when making up their minds about schools!

But no, it shouldn't be the deciding factor, it should be one of many things to look at when you make your final decision.

I think the more information we have as parents the better! I don't think its the big doom and gloom teachers/unions would like us to believe.

DS primary school is rated very very averagely, but having gone and talked to the teachers/principal its a good school and he is getting the help he needs, they have bent over backwards trying to help him get through everything we have had to deal with in the past 3 years.

So as I said, the website isn't the be all and end all but its definitely giving parents more information...and you know what they say, information is power.

[Lolli]

Hmmm. My mum is a teacher, so I'm biased by what she's told me. but there was an interesting article in the Sunday telegraph this morning (I know, Iknow, but I like my journalism sprinkled with tabloid ) stating that the exodus has already begun. Parents are already pulling kids from the poorer performing schools to the 'better' ones. So the balance is already going out of whack- the better performing students will flock to the better schools, and the divide will become greater. To pinch another BB's member saying (hi pixie)- bad, bad juju

[Jaycee]

I am so glad I found this thread!

I had a look at the local school I am thinking of sending DS to (we live in a regional town just outside of Adelaide) and it rated very poorly. I started panicking a bit as I really wanted to send him to this local school but was very hesistant to do so with such poor rankings.

I now see that there is so much more to a school than how the children performed in one test on one day of the year.

I am still going to do my research, but just not with that website alone. I will be speaking to the parents that send their children to that school and I will also visit the school to get a feel for it.

Thanks girls for opening my mind