From the Interim Headmaster – Academic Results at Shore

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3:17

Dear Students, Parents and Carers

Since my arrival at Shore at the beginning of Term 3, some have put to me the question, “How good are Shore’s academic results?” My response has always been to assure them the academic results of our students are very good.

It seems the question arises from the looming feast of placement in the media of the Band 6 League Tables. To me, the tables are essentially irrelevant and have very little to say about academic quality in a school. Why so? The league tables are unofficial, and they don’t represent any metric which counts for anything. Other than any special arrangements made by particular universities, they don’t affect university entry. The tables don’t distinguish between Band 6, (i.e. above 90%), in difficult or easier subjects, where a Band 5 in a difficult subject has more ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Ranks) value than Band 6 in a more straightforward subject. In that way, the league tables can be ‘gamed’ by those schools and students with a mind to do so. The tables simply cannot carry the weight of a proxy for comparative school quality. However, they are perhaps worth something: they demonstrate, not surprisingly, that students from nearly 50 selective schools, government or independent, feature lots of students who score above 90 in a number of subjects. For those who really want to know, Shore had 305 Band 6 results in 2021, compared with 335 in 2020. Over time, these metrics fluctuate, partly based on the uniqueness of each Year 12 group and also on the combination of subjects they study. Some subjects award lots of Band 6, some very few. Most schools find they slide up and down these tables over time.    

At my last school, in a year where the school slid down the league tables, its overall ATAR average improved considerably. This is really the point. It is student ATARs which determine which students are admitted to which courses at which universities. ATARs are not published (the government won’t allow it). Band 6’s were made available years ago as a result of a Freedom of Information Inquiry as ‘crumbs’ of inconsequential information to keep the media at bay. From this has arisen a whole media comparative industry based on anxiety and competition. 

Eventually, a school is able, through a combination of asking boys and data analysis based on first principles, to acquire student ATARs. In the 2021 HSC, 11 of our students achieved ATARs above 99, which placed them in the top 1% of possible results in the State. Remember that, although the ATAR sounds like a mark because it is out of 100, it is actually a place in the State; with around 77,000 students each year stretched from the top result of 99.95 down to zero, with each ATAR being 0.05 less than the one above, i.e. 99.95, 99.90. Accordingly, there will be 45-50 students in the state on each ATAR point at the top, with much more bunching in the middle range.  Eighteen of our boys were in the top 2% of possible ATAR results in the state, and 42% were in the top 10%. In fact, the proportion of our students at the very top increased from 2020 to 2021. These sound like outstanding results to me! They are the result of excellent teaching from highly able and dedicated staff and the diligent application of our students.

Unfortunately, schools cannot know until around March 2023 what courses and universities the previous Year 12 have successfully accessed. This is because there is a sequence of university place offers from the early round in December until the late round in February. This is too late for the media frenzy and, hence, ‘slips under the radar’.

If, as I am arguing, Band 6 results are not an adequate base for assessing the quality of a school, on what basis can schools be assessed?  I suggest the following factors:

• Destination surveys (to what extent has the school experience been a successful ‘passport’ into productive life beyond school, such as university, private colleges, TAFE and meaningful work)?  ATARs are one aspect of this.
• What has the student gained from the holistic experience of school life in terms of academics, Christian education, pastoral care and co-curricular involvement?
• What kind of human being is this young man?

What then should we expect of our boys?  We should expect them to try hard and do their best.  This is a Christian principle: “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17)

Our society, including the media, are often attracted to simplistic evaluations based on reductionism. Schools are about more than league table results. They are about the whole person.  

How will Shore fare in the league tables this December? We don’t know. In terms of pathways for our boys, it is not that important. Its main significance is optics and marketing, especially because of the misguided view, encouraged by media, that these results are some kind of global comment on the quality of schools. In my experience, even the Heads of the schools (selective in the main) which come out best in the league tables, think that the comparative tables are essentially nonsense.

Shore is academically strong!

Dr John Collier
Interim Headmaster