Good Education Guide reveals country schools lifting their VCE results

[Joseph41]

From the Herald Sun:

COUNTRY public schools have ranked as the state’s most improved, new data reveals.

Murrayville Community College, in the state’s far northwest, lifted its median VCE study score from 24 in 2012 to 32 last year.

...

“It takes that initial spark to say let’s do it and make a difference.

“It then become infectious, students feed off themselves and teachers do the same."

...

MOST IMPROVED SCHOOLS — 2012 v 2016 median study scores
1. Murrayville Community College — 24 v 32

2. Tyrrell College — 23 v 29

3. Apollo Bay P-12 College — 28 v 32

4. Ballarat Secondary College — 23 v 27

5. Hoppers Crossing Secondary College — 25 v 29"

This is great. Has anybody been to a country school? What's your perception of them? How can we continue to improve education state-wide?

(I bloody love the photo of the high five, by the way hahaha.)

[Calebark]

+1 for my school's drastic improvement!

[Joseph41]

+1 for my school's drastic improvement!

Did you notice a change when you were there, Calebark?

[Calebark]

Did you notice a change when you were there, Calebark?

I haven't been there since Year 7, but I've still seen quite a bit of change -- especially since 2014. There's definitely been a conscious effort by the school's leading staff to get students more involved in study; there's been an addition of after-school programs, incursions, and more careers meeting than normal to help students find their ideal path.

Additionally, since 2014, there's been a hiring of a lot of new amazing teachers, particulary in the Science faculty. Since then, science classe sizes have gone up (example: in Physics, went from single digits to almost twenty in my year level to multiple classes for Yr 11), as has their performance (quite a few scaled +40's + Physics had the highest scaled SS for a few years now). The library, Year 12 common area, and science centre have become a lot more crowded before school, during recess & lunch, and after school due to students studying. A fair few students attend the ATAR Notes lectures every year, so kudoes for that. We even had our second highest ATAR score in our 33 year history last year, and our first 50 in well over a decade.

There's definitely been some changes. It's continuing to change too, so fingers crossed we'll be able to continue to improve.

[Joseph41]

I haven't been there since Year 7, but I've still seen quite a bit of change -- especially since 2014. There's definitely been a conscious effort by the school's leading staff to get students more involved in study; there's been an addition of after-school programs, incursions, and more careers meeting than normal to help students find their ideal path.

Additionally, since 2014, there's been a hiring of a lot of new amazing teachers, particulary in the Science faculty. Since then, science classe sizes have gone up (example: in Physics, went from single digits to almost twenty in my year level to multiple classes for Yr 11), as has their performance (quite a few scaled +40's + Physics had the highest scaled SS for a few years now). The library, Year 12 common area, and science centre have become a lot more crowded before school, during recess & lunch, and after school due to students studying. A fair few students attend the ATAR Notes lectures every year, so kudoes for that. We even had our second highest ATAR score in our 33 year history last year, and our first 50 in well over a decade.

There's definitely been some changes. It's continuing to change too, so fingers crossed we'll be able to continue to improve.

I loved reading this post - thank you.

So there's definitely been a cultural shift of sorts? What do you think has been the most important element of that transition/improvement?

[Calebark]

Most definitely a cultural shift! Hmm, probably due to a change in the teaching of the science classes. It used to be composed of a lot (not all -- but a lot) of lazy teachers who didn't do much except read off the board and let the class talk. The addition of these new science teachers I mentioned set some pretty high standards, and had a very active teaching style -- lots of class discussion, lots of pracs, lots of questions. I feel like this really promoted everybody's curiosity; students started asking questions, and just wanting more because they realised learning can be enjoyable. Like I said, a lot of the improvement in study scores was in the Sciences, so this is definitely a major factor.

We've had a fair few trainee teachers come to our school to observe classes being directed to the classrooms of said science teachers, so it seems like our school has been catching on. Major shoutout to our Head of Science -- she's ultimately responsible for a lot of this!

One more important thing to mention is we have had a Head of English (I think he's the Head? Or he's in charge of a lot of English stuff) since last year. He's been responsible for a lot of lesson plans, changes to the English marking rubric, a weekly English homework club, and a change in harshness of marking (typically easy markers, but this has been changed to make it more realistic by VCAA standards). Given that most of the school does English, and most of the school have made at least SOME minor improvement in English, this constitutes a pretty big change. In fact, the subject coordinator had to put out an announcement that she cannot move people to different English classes, as sooo many students kept asking to be switched to this particular English's teachers classes. Shoutout to the coordinator for purposely making sure I was put into his class when classes were being 'randomly' selected.

[EdwinaB19]

Going to a country school can be extremely challenging, and I've noticed it this year a lot more, now that I'm doing VCE.

Myself and my classmates get up at 5am and travel three hours to make it to headstart lectures in Melbourne. It can be really intimidating sometimes seeing how much access city kids have to tutoring and lectures compared to what students from my town have.

Coming from a school with a 2016 study score average of 28, and just 3 students ever getting an ATAR over 90 it's really difficult to remain positive about VCE and receiving a 'good' ATAR.

That said..our classes are tiny (there are 6 people in my psych class ) so everybody works as a team and we get lots of one on one time with teachers. So there's definitely benefits there too.

[Joseph41]

Most definitely a cultural shift! Hmm, probably due to a change in the teaching of the science classes. It used to be composed of a lot (not all -- but a lot) of lazy teachers who didn't do much except read off the board and let the class talk. The addition of these new science teachers I mentioned set some pretty high standards, and had a very active teaching style -- lots of class discussion, lots of pracs, lots of questions. I feel like this really promoted everybody's curiosity; students started asking questions, and just wanting more because they realised learning can be enjoyable. Like I said, a lot of the improvement in study scores was in the Sciences, so this is definitely a major factor.

Goes to show how important teaching is, and how big an impact it can have. Did I read elsewhere that these teachers were from Teach For Australia? If so, that's a very good reflection on the program.

Shoutout to the coordinator for purposely making sure I was put into his class when classes were being 'randomly' selected.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Going to a country school can be extremely challenging, and I've noticed it this year a lot more, now that I'm doing VCE.

Myself and my classmates get up at 5am and travel three hours to make it to headstart lectures in Melbourne. It can be really intimidating sometimes seeing how much access city kids have to tutoring and lectures compared to what students from my town have.

Coming from a school with a 2016 study score average of 28, and just 3 students ever getting an ATAR over 90 it's really difficult to remain positive about VCE and receiving a 'good' ATAR.

That said..our classes are tiny (there are 6 people in my psych class ) so everybody works as a team and we get lots of one on one time with teachers. So there's definitely benefits there too.

Great post! Thanks for sharing.

Do you think the smaller classes are ultimately good for learning? You say you get a lot of one-on-one time with teachers; is there also a close connection within your cohort?

[K888]

This is great. Has anybody been to a country school? What's your perception of them? How can we continue to improve education state-wide?

Country school born and bred (admittedly was a private school in high school, so I probably have less first-hand tales of disadvantage, but I went to a public primary school, and knew plenty of people at public high schools) I apologise in advance for this potentially being hard to follow (and potentially going off topic?)

To me, it's absolutely crazy to see the difference between the public schools and the private schools in country areas. I feel like year 12 results fluctuate a lot more in the public schools (at least, in my area), whereas they are more consistent at the private schools. For instance, one of the public high schools in my area last year, they had no study scores above 40, and their dux got an 88 (if I remember correctly). The year before that, their dux got low-mid 90s (still great scores, don't get me wrong).

I feel like the attitudes to education are different in the country, compared to in the city/suburbs. In prep/grade 1, I had kids in my class say that there was no point to them learning to read, or even going to school, because they were just gonna be a truck driver like their dad. Pretty crazy, to have kids as young as 6-7 (and potentially even younger), already with such a negative attitude to education.

I think also, the atmosphere is a bit different - these are traditionally areas of lower socioeconomic status, with lower levels of education, compared to city areas. Going and becoming a tradie/doing an apprenticeship is definitely more of a prominent choice and can even be something that's encouraged to people by their families/friends instead of doing tertiary education.
There's also the additional challenges that come from living in the country - a number of kids have parents who are dairy farmers, and last year's crisis had a significant impact on them. Then there's the closures of power stations, factories, etc. putting additional strain on not only families but the communities as well. Plus, lower population growth and the like has an impact too.

Admittedly, I don't know what public schools are like in the city and suburbs - but to me, from the bit of reading I've done, if you live in the city and go to a public school, you're not really at that much of a disadvantage (if there's any at all) - granted, I realise this is not the case for some areas. However, in the country (again, speaking for my area and from my experience), it's the private schools that overwhelmingly get better results - undoubtedly due to the better facilities and more money available (potentially also the attitude towards education that kids/parents have that attend the school?).
When I got my ATAR last year, I reflected a bit on my schooling journey. And to me, the unavoidable truth was that if my parents hadn't have been willing and able to send me to a private school, my results would have been nowhere near what they were.

Like, removing the private and public school discussion, I think overall, country schools in general are at more of a disadvantage compared to schools in Melbourne. There's generally less subjects on offer (teacher availability, etc.), you don't necessarily have access to the extra resources that city kids have (eg: lectures, tutoring companies, etc.), and the like. In terms of teachers - it's just so much harder to attract teachers of outstanding quality, because quite often, most people don't want to move more than a certain distance from Melbourne. The teachers at my school were fantastic, but most of them were from the area originally - in fact, a lot were actually alumni of the school.

Going to a country school can be extremely challenging, and I've noticed it this year a lot more, now that I'm doing VCE.

Myself and my classmates get up at 5am and travel three hours to make it to headstart lectures in Melbourne. It can be really intimidating sometimes seeing how much access city kids have to tutoring and lectures compared to what students from my town have.

Coming from a school with a 2016 study score average of 28, and just 3 students ever getting an ATAR over 90 it's really difficult to remain positive about VCE and receiving a 'good' ATAR.

That said..our classes are tiny (there are 6 people in my psych class ) so everybody works as a team and we get lots of one on one time with teachers. So there's definitely benefits there too.

And this just cancelled out the anecdote I was going to write about waking up really early and travelling for hours to get to the ATARNotes lectures last year

[Calebark]

Goes to show how important teaching is, and how big an impact it can have. Did I read elsewhere that these teachers were from Teach For Australia? If so, that's a very good reflection on the program.

Two of them (in my opinion, the best two) are from Teach for Australia. One is the main Physics teacher/Yr 11 coordinator (classes got so big they had to hire a second Physics teacher this year), and one is the former junior + Yr 11 chemistry teacher (she moved to England last year, but she still had a profound effect on student attitude).

A lot of the science student cohort wish to be teachers themselves after seing the profound effect a good teacher can have too.

[EdwinaB19]

Do you think the smaller classes are ultimately good for learning? You say you get a lot of one-on-one time with teachers; is there also a close connection within your cohort?

I think smaller classes can be good for learning, it ensures that every student receives the attention they need from the teacher, without compromising the learning of any other students. Having a small cohort has especially been beneficial for my class in English, our teacher is more available to do workshops and mark any practise essays we write (for example).

There's absolutely a close connection between our cohort. There's only 18 of us doing full VCE, and we've all known each other for years, so it's become  a very supportive environment and we all get along really well (most of the time )

Country school born and bred (admittedly was a private school in high school, so I probably have less first-hand tales of disadvantage, but I went to a public primary school, and knew plenty of people at public high schools) I apologise in advance for this potentially being hard to follow (and potentially going off topic?)

To me, it's absolutely crazy to see the difference between the public schools and the private schools in country areas. I feel like year 12 results fluctuate a lot more in the public schools (at least, in my area), whereas they are more consistent at the private schools. For instance, one of the public high schools in my area last year, they had no study scores above 40, and their dux got an 88 (if I remember correctly). The year before that, their dux got low-mid 90s (still great scores, don't get me wrong).

I feel like the attitudes to education are different in the country, compared to in the city/suburbs. In prep/grade 1, I had kids in my class say that there was no point to them learning to read, or even going to school, because they were just gonna be a truck driver like their dad. Pretty crazy, to have kids as young as 6-7 (and potentially even younger), already with such a negative attitude to education.

I think also, the atmosphere is a bit different - these are traditionally areas of lower socioeconomic status, with lower levels of education, compared to city areas. Going and becoming a tradie/doing an apprenticeship is definitely more of a prominent choice and can even be something that's encouraged to people by their families/friends instead of doing tertiary education.
There's also the additional challenges that come from living in the country - a number of kids have parents who are dairy farmers, and last year's crisis had a significant impact on them. Then there's the closures of power stations, factories, etc. putting additional strain on not only families but the communities as well. Plus, lower population growth and the like has an impact too.

Admittedly, I don't know what public schools are like in the city and suburbs - but to me, from the bit of reading I've done, if you live in the city and go to a public school, you're not really at that much of a disadvantage (if there's any at all) - granted, I realise this is not the case for some areas. However, in the country (again, speaking for my area and from my experience), it's the private schools that overwhelmingly get better results - undoubtedly due to the better facilities and more money available (potentially also the attitude towards education that kids/parents have that attend the school?).
When I got my ATAR last year, I reflected a bit on my schooling journey. And to me, the unavoidable truth was that if my parents hadn't have been willing and able to send me to a private school, my results would have been nowhere near what they were.

Like, removing the private and public school discussion, I think overall, country schools in general are at more of a disadvantage compared to schools in Melbourne. There's generally less subjects on offer (teacher availability, etc.), you don't necessarily have access to the extra resources that city kids have (eg: lectures, tutoring companies, etc.), and the like. In terms of teachers - it's just so much harder to attract teachers of outstanding quality, because quite often, most people don't want to move more than a certain distance from Melbourne. The teachers at my school were fantastic, but most of them were from the area originally - in fact, a lot were actually alumni of the school.
And this just cancelled out the anecdote I was going to write about waking up really early and travelling for hours to get to the ATARNotes lectures last year

Completely agree with this! (and sorry for stealing the anecdote )

Mod edit: Please refrain from double posting Edit your first post next time

[vox nihili]

From the Herald Sun:

This is great. Has anybody been to a country school? What's your perception of them? How can we continue to improve education state-wide?

(I bloody love the photo of the high five, by the way hahaha.)

I can't read the whole article so only basing off what OP has shown

Wish this were the case but the data they've referenced don't show that country schools have actually improved at all.

Whilst there's no doubt that these schools have experienced a significant improvement that should be expected. They're all very small schools with only a handful of students completing year 12 (and thus contributing to those averages). As such, we'd expect their numbers to be the most labile in the state and I believe these data reflect this, rather than an improvement in rural education.

Further, the data they've chosen to use are very odd and make one suspicious that they're sensationalising. Given data for average study scores are available for all years between 1997 and now, why have they chosen 2012-2016? A four year period is a little odd. I would love to know why that was chosen and whether, perhaps, they chose that particular time span because they produced results that were most flattering to their point.

Even using these data at all makes comparison tricky, as they're effectively relative data. They don't actually show an absolute change, but rather relative change compared to other schools in the state. To show absolute change you'd have to have a standard test, which is what things like NAPLAN try to do.

[TheAspiringDoc]

I left my public high school a few years ago due to the rowdiness. From what I hear a lot of the rowdy kids there have now dropped out. Maybe more of the rowdier kids (who I assume are associated with lower SS's) are dropping out rather than completing VCE.
I don't mean to say this with any mean intent, it's just something I've observed that may contribute.