MySchool website

[happyhappyland]

The website is an epic fail in my opinion. The ICSEA's intention is the group schools into social clusters, thus allowing good schools to be compared to good schools, and bad schools compared against bad schools. The centre focus on the NAPLAN results, which itself is already very controversial demonstrates the government's lack of planning into this stupid idea.

What are your thoughts?

[physics]

our principal recommended us look up where our school stands cause his really proud of it.. --"

[Yitzi_K]

The MySchool rankings are meaningless. They tell you nothing about a school.

Mt Scopus, which topped the 2009 VCE rankings, is below average according to MySchool.

[schmalex]

I'd say MySchool says more about a school than VCE rankings.

[Yitzi_K]

I'd say MySchool says more about a school than VCE rankings.

Why's that?

[schmalex]

For one, if there is a small year 12 cohort then it's pretty hard to measure. But also, schools tend to kick kids out just before exams if they aren't looking like they'll do well, or give people scholarships in year 11 that are invalid if their marks get low enough etc.  VCE rankings can be manipulated more easily.

[Yitzi_K]

For one, if there is a small year 12 cohort then it's pretty hard to measure. But also, schools tend to kick kids out just before exams if they aren't looking like they'll do well, or give people scholarships in year 11 that are invalid if their marks get low enough etc.  VCE rankings can be manipulated more easily.

And you think NAPLANs can't be manipulated???
The teachers themselves supervise NAPLAN exams, without external invigilation. The teachers could tell the students the answers.

[Albeno69]

no one trys on a naplan or at our school a lot of people just rock up and talk at the back and do minimal effort it is not s true representation of a school in my opinion. not sure how other schools students approach these tests.

[crayolé]

And isnt it only accurate up till year 9? They say nothing about the three years after

[costargh]

The best use of the myschool data is to compare the improvements between year 7 and year 9 within the same school.

biggest issue with this however is that some people might consider that improvements between these years are only due to that school 'teaching to the test'.

I personally believe thats thee best use of the data though.

[Eriny]

The thing I like about MySchool is that it is a much more holistic approach to schools data than what we've been previously offered (e.g. VCE performance tables), however they still don't tell all. They don't say much about how well-adjusted kids are (are they put under pressure to succeed? Or is there the opposite problem?), or if they're given the opportunity to follow a range of different passions (not just academics and sports), or the sense of community there is, etc. And these aren't things that can always be measured statistically, or even judged relative to other schools. It'd be a pity if data like this caused a blindness to other possibilities than a classically 'high performing school' and it would be even worse if schools stopped caring about students holistically so that they could improve their MySchool data and subsequent enrollments. And even worse again, if funding were to be based on test performance as it is in the US (which makes no sense at all).

[Duck]

I do think that parents can adequately gauge the community/attitude of a school by how it's students behave and present themselves. For example, enrollments at Xavier have significantly fallen despite them still doing well at vce.

[grace10111]

yeah, it's pretty lame - i mean, how well can you rate a school.. BUT has anyone seen the ratemyteachers site??? funniest thing i've ever seen. all past students and stuff write about and rate teachers.... makes for a good laugh

[claire92]

I think that Myschool was detrimental for some, but also gave a broader insight into independant schools and allowed quite a few government schools to shine.

I personally think its nessasary for such a system, but can be innapropriate for low scoring schools and parents taking this as information when selecting a school.

[Hutchoo]

Haha, I think my school has the worst results.... ever.