Student Attitudes to School - does it tell you anything about a school.

[wysiwyg]

I was looking at the school annual reports (Annual Reports for the Community) for the primary school DD will attend - in it there is a section

5. Student attitudes to school Results: 2012

Derived from the Attitudes to School survey completed annually by Victorian government school students in Years 5
to 12. It includes questions about students’ engagement in and enjoyment of school. The school’s average score is
reported here on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is the highest possible score.

I didn't know whether any parents or teachers had any insight on whether the results of this tell you anything informative at all?

To me it sounds an important measure - but not knowing the how the survey worked is hard to tell whether you can learn anything from it.

The school looking at scored below the median, and at the bottom of the range for 60% of Victorian schools

It has similar result for the parent and teacher satisfaction sections.

[Phteven]

I have no idea about surveys but I wouldn't send my children to a school where the children didn't respond positively to seeing their Principal.

[Olive]

Not sure I'd be keen either....off to find our results to check that question....

[AnyDream]

I would think you would need to look at the results from previous years, as well as any commentary from the school about the results, as they may not fit the usual pattern. Looking at previous annual reports might add context. They run a similar thing here but our school reports all the data like how many responses they had, what percentage in each response category.

[wysiwyg]

It showed the results for 2011 as well as the last four years combined (which was the same below the median and at bottom of range). The 2013 report should be out soon as they have to be done by end of march and some schools they are already up for. The overall score which is out of 5 isn't bad I just wondered why might be so much below other schools in that. I looked at another school different area and it didn't do quite so well academically but had above average satisfaction.

[Olive]

Our school has 2013 available but I couldn't find any earlier ones

[Trillian]

Nope. Because it doesn't tell me who they collected the data from, how many people they collected it from, did they have any general grievances with the school (ie, are the ones doing the survey are the ones who whinge about everything all the time), are there any external factors that may influence the data etc. You can't even compare that result from one school to another because it's an entirely different school, with a completely different set of survey respondents.

[wysiwyg]

Our school has 2013 available but I couldn't find any earlier ones

Do you think it contains any valuable info? E.g. those charts do they really tell you anything - most of the stats have one for the past year, plus one for the past four years.

I believe that the questionnaire is the School Life Questionnaire from ACER.

[myturn]

Most of the schools I have worked in the attitudes to school data was definitely used by the school to identify areas the school could improve and work on. I would say the department does use that data, and it's probably fairly accurate according to want I have seen. Doesn't necessarily mean the school is a bad school, but that there are some gaps in the way the students feel engaged. There are certain year levels that tend to be lower than the rest of the years, no matter what the school (eg things start dropping in year 8 and 9, and slowly improve up to year 12).

So yeah, you could use it and be reasonably confident it was useful data - certainly the school and department does

[OceanPrincess]

Where do you find them??

[wysiwyg]

Where do you find them??

.gov.au sites are ok to link right?

State Register

you can search for your school or suburb on there

[OceanPrincess]

Thanks wysiwyg!

My school is "similar" for the student engagement questions. I'm ok with that I think.

[TeniBear]

I think I'd believe positive feedback from students, but take negative with a grain of salt. I reckon kids are more likely to play up how much they "hate" school, so if they're saying they like it the school must be pretty great

After checking the site wysiwyg posted, there's another tick for the school I want my girls in! It has a higher than average rating from all three - parents/teachers/students

[wysiwyg]

It wouldn't change my mind as I want to maximize the time children are not in school - so the nearest walkable school is a massive plus, it is also a bilingual school (is a state school) which I think is a massive plus and we wouldn't get elsewhere.

The questions that they are answering are not really about 'hating' school - and looking at the way the study is designed I don't think you can totally discount the results.

Is more that this just adds to the gut feeling that I have about the school being very good academically (although it is rated lower than similar schools in subjects other than English and Maths) which is less important to me than how the kids feel about school and learning. Hopefully the open evening on Tuesday might change that, conversations with the few other parents I have had do tend to be very results focused, partly due to the demographic of the area I think.

[Beach Mama]

From a teaching perspective, the results tell you about as much as Naplan and about as much as how a child was feeling on the day of the survey as well as how well they could read and interpret the questions which are worded in a way that you don't get skewed results but also makes it tricky for kids with lower literacy levels to understand. The responses range from strongly agree to strongly disagree from left to right - then one question may be I feel safe at school and the next something like There are times I have not felt safe at school - make it tricky to go from agree to the first statement and understanding you disagree with the next ITMS??

I have been to schools where kids have responded highly to feeling unsafe at school, all because of one student, who admittedly was a behavioural nightmare, but he was a threat to himself not other kids yet they all responded in a negative way on the survey to school safety.

I don't really think that the survey conveys a huge amount about how good the kids feel about school - I think you will get that from a tour and walking around the school during class times, preferably not in a big group tour. If you rock up for a tour and the Principal says come back another time, I would be questioning it!

Anyhooo after all that, use it like you would anything else to make your decision but not based on the survey solely or out of place with tours, results, programs, and gut feelings. xx