SCHOOL LEAGUE TABLES
LEE DUHRING | Assistant Principal
Education Centre (teaching 29 years)
“Information about our schools is available publicly through annual reports and information about students is available to parents though testing, reporting and anytime on request. I am opposed to crude league tables.” PATRICIA CAVANAGH | Year 4-5 Teacher Woodcroft Primary School (teaching 30 years) “I’m horrified. It’s not a true reflection of schools or students – so to be used as a guide of whether schools are succeeding or failing is inaccurate. I’m sure this will reflect on students’ self-esteem, on their families and staff if everything boils down to one number on a page.” JICKY ATKINSON | Visual Art Teacher Bowden Brompton Community College (teaching 10 years) “I haven’t looked at the site yet as I’m worried about how Bowden Brompton will be portrayed. We’re talking about kids who are already quite disadvantaged – do we need that very public disadvantage echoed through the education system as well? Perhaps that money could have been better spent on resources and teachers in schools like ours that need them in order to really make a difference.” WAYNE BICKLEY | Technical Studies Teacher Parafield Gardens Primary School (teaching 5 years)
“Julia Gillard is deliberately using information that was clearly collected for another purpose. It’s really interesting the politicians have chosen to emulate the UK and the US – two nations whose education results are far below ours. So why are we doing this?”
CHARLOTTE HOLMES | Year 4-5 Teacher Evanston Gardens Primary School (teaching 5 years)
“I think it’s good in one way because it’s good to compare, however, I don’t think it’s positive because it’s based on just one test during the year and that’s not a good indicator of student achievements throughout the year. Scientists don’t do an experiment once and use those results!” OLIVIA BRETT | Drama Teacher Mark Oliphant College (teaching 10 years) “The website and the inevitable league tables seem at cross purposes with the State Government’s investment in new schools and the expansion of suburbs in north of Adelaide which aims to change how people view lower-socio-economic areas. Why would people move to a suburb whose schools will be on the bottom of league tables?”
test year 9’s do after their first year here. It belittles all the programs we have engaging our enormous ethnically diverse student population. Private schools will change to teach to the test whereas we will continue to educate.” IAN KENT | Principal, Kangaroo Island
Community Education (teaching 20 years)
“As chairperson of the AEU Principal Consultative Committee, I could sit down with a colleague and work out which schools will end up on the bottom – all have similar things in common: low socioeconomic area; rural and remote; high indigenous populations. The question I put to government is how are the league tables going to make a difference to schools that end up on the bottom? All it’s going to do is name and shame them and make it harder to attract quality leaders and teachers with experience. What is the Labor Government going to do to fix it?”
NOEL HOLMES | currently studying Education Doctorate (teaching 37 years) “League tables are unjust! Let’s not forget the Federal Government, just like the Liberals, is showing it follows the lead of the OECD. Such ‘global’ thinking, which is a really shallow interpretation of European reports, is not good politics or sound education practice. Think ‘glocally’ and get it right for South Australia.” GORAN YAKAS | Art Design Teacher Murray Bridge High School (teaching 34 years)
“The notion of these league tables being an indicator of how our school fares is so ridiculous, I’m not even interested in looking at the website. We have a massive number of feeder schools (more than 10) – our school is being judged on one 13