I should like to bring to the school community’s attention the fact that John Colet has been ranked the 15th primary school in NSW (out of over 1200) based on the 2013 NAPLAN results. Among the fourteen schools ahead of us were Sydney Grammar Edgecliff and St Ives, Abbottsleigh, Mosman Prep, St Aloysius and four Government schools with OC classes. See:
http://bettereducation.com.au/school/Primary/nsw/nsw_top_primary_schools.aspx?yr=2013
Special congratulations to the teachers and children of this year’s 4th and 6th classes who sat the test last year.
The NAPLAN (National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy) is a basic skills test mandated by the Government which started in 2009 and which all Australian school children sit in 3rd and 5th class and in years 7 and 9. This national testing replaced the NSW State mandated Basic Skills Test which ran for many years. The children of John Colet School have done consistently well under both of these testing systems. We have always been among the top 100 primary schools in NSW, and usually in the top 50.
Congratulations are due to all the teachers and children for the consistency of results and for the intelligent approach to this testing system. We prepare the children, of course, but we studiously avoid giving these tests unreasonable focus. We don t cease all other operations just to get a good NAPLAN mark. And we are especially proud of those children who don t find that school work comes easily, and who do their best in these tests.
When we receive the NAPLAN results we do analyse them and look for areas where we can improve. For example in 2012 while all other areas (Numeracy, Reading, Grammar etc) maintained the high standards we are used to, the children’s Writing result was somewhat below par (for JCS).
We clearly needed to find out why and rectify the gap. As a result we arranged for some in-service help on Writing over the 2012/13 Summer break. The result was immediate, and showed in the excellent 2013 result.
Gilbert Mane
Headmaster
