You can now check out how local schools are performing on the The My School website.
The website has been updated for 2023 with new profile information on schools and the latest school-level NAPLAN data.
Locally, there are six primary schools and the Secondary College in Daylesford and surrounding areas. Yandoit, Bullarto and the Dharma School are small with less than 4o students each. Daylesford Primary has 245 students and the Secondary College has 465.
The My School website provides data on the school profile, socioeconomic status of the children at the school, school attendance, finances and NAPLAN performance on reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation and numeracy.
“My School provides data on schooling right across Australia, helping parents, carers, schools and governments to understand the performance of schools,” said ACARA CEO, David de Carvalho.
“It’s an important resource for parents to make informed decisions about their children’s schooling. As well as providing an overview of the approach and focus of each school, My School gives parents and carers information on student and teacher numbers, attendance rates, income and expenditure, and NAPLAN results.
“It also provides teachers with important insights into school performance, supporting and driving improvements across the nation.”
But there are concerns that the My School Website only provides limited information for parents and teachers on the quality of their school. It does not consider the culture, values, community connections or the emotional wellbeing of children who attend. Associate Professor Stewart Riddle from the University of Southern Queensland argues, ” there is simply no substitute for visiting a school, speaking to teachers and school leaders, and getting information about their programs and resources.”
More broadly, there continues to be a an ongoing debate about the best way to improve primary and secondary in Australia, ranging from criticism of the way teachers are supported to develop curriculum to much wider views about the purpose of school education in today’s society.
While the My School website does not present the whole picture on the quality of a school, nevertheless most parents are interested in how well their children’s school is performing on important skills like reading and numeracy. The website also sets each school in context to allow these results to be compared to other schools and to see how well children are progressing over time.
On average, apart from Hepburn Primary, local primary school children generally come from slightly more advantaged backgrounds than average. By contrast, the Secondary College student population is less advantaged than average, suggesting that a proportion of more affluent families send their teenage children out of the area to private secondary schools.
Overall results for for reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation and numeracy for the primary schools were at, or slightly below the average compared to all Australian students, with some variation between schools. Schools with very small numbers of students (Yandoit and Bullarto) did not report results.
Similarly, the Secondary College results at year 7 and 9 were generally at or slightly below the Australian average compared to all Australian students.
Visit www.myschool.edu.au
