APPA president, Leonie Trimper, wrote to all APPA members seeking feedback on their experiences with the Australian Government's My School website. In that letter, she stated that APPA supports transparency and the provision of information to parents, but with suitable protocols about the use of the information, in particular by the media. Click here to download and read the letter in PDF format.

Here is some of the feedback that has been received (the initials in brackets after the feedback item refer to the state or territory from which it came):

• Apart from an overall concern about how misleading such (narrow) benchmark data can be, I can not figure out how it can be that comparisons (i.e. vs SFO bands) with our neighbour school in a Vic DEECD context are done through SFO, in which there is a difference of 0.48 to 0.38 (a significant demographic difference for ‘value-add’ considerations), whilst the ICSEA measure suggests that the two schools are identical at 1045. I do not believe that anyone would suggest that the two schools (whilst 1km apart) service the same demographics. The My School site is basically counter-productive rubbish, and it is time that it was acknowledged that we do teach across a wide range of domains, including values, thinking, social and emotional domains; the list goes on. (Vic.)

• My feedback re the website is simple and probably similar to many of my colleagues. I felt the website did not in any way convey the full picture of the school, the many good things that happen at the school which contribute significantly to the growth and development of the student. I also felt that the funding per capita which contributed to the narrow outcomes in the report should be mandatory. Another concern I had was the accuracy of the school groupings, which has already been substantially covered in the media. I am not afraid of transparency about my school or any school’s performance, but funding and other important contextual factors are critical to any notion of transparency and accountability. (Vic.)

• Does not represent the full picture of any school’s performance. Dangerous to analyse a school on the data provided by too few measurement instruments. Need to know the context of each individual school. Implementation of NAPLAN still varies between schools, particularly where students are excluded by parents in some schools and not in others. Many parents do not understand the information. (Vic.)

• I disagree totally with the level of disadvantage that my school has been rated as. I even went so far as to try to get the level changed 2 years ago, as it was patently wrong. My district director supported me in this, but we were told that no changes would be made at this time. We were in the silly position of being a category 6 school with a preschool alongside that was identified under the Federal government ‘Communities for Children’ which provided funding to communities in poverty. I agree with people who are wondering how relevant the comparisons can possibly be between small schools like mine and big schools. I also have a major problem with the emotive use of colour banding. Anyone who looks to compare schools only has to look at the colours to know where to send their children! Red is bad, green is good. I have many NEP students and students with language difficulties, and these children make excellent progress over their 7 – 8 primary years. This does not show on the website. It puzzles me that we have students with NEPs sit the tests anyway, as we know that to have an NEP you need to be significantly disadvantaged - that is, not at the same level as other students of the same age. Why are we testing them on the same test and then being surprised when they don’t do as well? (S.A.)

• Having spent some time browsing this site, it is obvious to me that the schools that have performed well are those schools with higher socioeconomic advantage. Isn't this what we already know? (Qld)

• My concern is that the number of students sitting the test in Years 3, 5 & 7 is not mentioned on the website and neither is the number of NEP students or ESL students. If this were included, it would at least provide a better picture. Our school had 5, 7 & 8 in the three year levels that sat the test in 2009, and we are being compared with schools with over 1,000 students. This certainly does not provide a fair comparison when 1 NEP student is equivalent to 20% in our school. (S.A.)

• Having read the media release put out by APPA I support the stance APPA has taken regarding the potential misuse of information on the My Schools website. Indeed in a local paper a politician went as far as to name three schools who he implied, should be performing better, which my staff found appalling. Located in a high socioeconomic area, our school is a high performing government school. The My School website has actually enhanced our profile in the community, as we compare very favourably with local private schools and other similar government schools. We lose many students to the private sector before Year 7 unfortunately, as parents want to secure their high school place but do not necessarily want to leave Kapinara. We have several new enrolments this year who made mention of the site and how happy they were to be coming to the school. Having spent most of my time in lower socioeconomic schools, many of which were difficult to staff, I empathise with the situation they are in regarding publishing results and creating potential opportunities for damaging and unfair comparisons. (W.A.)

• Our school is a new school in a fast growing suburb of a capital city. In January 2008 we opened with a student population of 190 students (Kindergarten to Year 7). We finished the 2009 school year with an enrolment of approximately 440 students. We commenced the 2010 school year with an enrolment of 615 students. A large percentage of these students are Kindergarten students, however, the new primary enrolment is significant. The My School website highlights the performance of students in 2008. The maximum amount of time students had attended our school, by the time testing was undertaken, would have been maybe 11 weeks. As you could imagine, any impact we had was minimal. But there it is on the website for all to see! We were faced with the same problem in 2009 and will face the same difficulty in 2010. In 2009 we commenced term 1 with an enrolment of 3 Year 7 students only. By the time NAPLAN testing was undertaken, our enrolment had increased to 6 students. All 6 students were tested.  Here are the facts: 3 of the students (50% of the cohort) commenced at our school during term one. 3 of the students tested (50% of the cohort) were ESL. 1 student tested (17% of the cohort) is dyslexic.  If you look at the My School website, you would think our school is underperforming in Year 7. Red lights are flashing!!! The government would say that parents need to discuss My School results with their school. However, many of our prospective parents come from overseas. I know that they are look at the My School website to determine which school they will attend. The information contained on the My School website is very misleading.

• I imagine you are getting a lot of feedback about the My School website, and whilst I accept that in today’s political climate this sort of information is going to be provided to the general public, I don’t believe we can sit back and allow the statistical inaccuracies to go unquestioned. I am no statistician, but I really take issue with the assertion that fair and valid comparisons can be made between the listed statistically similar schools. In a number of places on the web site, claims made about statistically similar schools include - fair and valid comparison; meaningful and fair comparison; compare like with like; students in similar schools. I understand schools have been grouped according to the ICSEA and have read the Fact Sheet and Technical Paper and still believe the claims made about the comparisons are totally unfounded.
  My biggest beef is that it is not statistically valid to compare a school with 1,983 students to one with 23, as is the case in my group of statistically similar schools. I have had similar discussions with my director regarding NAPLAN results, and he accepts that aggregated data, percentages and averages are often meaningless with small cohorts. Obviously, the impact of the performance of one very strong or very weak student in a school of 23 will be vastly different in a school of 1,983. I have spent some time looking at these comparisons and from my brief analysis felt compelled to say something. Last year we had 96 students (K-7), and we have been compared with, amongst others, four girls’ only high schools ranging in size from 734 to 1422 and a K-6 College that has 98% of its population from NESB and teaches values based on a particular faith. 9 of the schools in our group only have Year 7 results for primary students and 32 don’t have any Year 7 students. I don’t believe, even after my brief analysis, that the web site can claim comparisons are fair and valid or are comparing like with like. I have sent APPA a simple spreadsheet where I have listed all of the schools in my statistically similar group in ascending order according to student population. My analysis of school performance is simply the percentage of areas each school got in each colour. I believe this analysis clearly shows that small schools are on a hiding to nothing with the current style of data presented on My School. All data relates to 2009, except when the school's name is in red, which refers to 2008 data. This comparison shows the impossible position small schools can find themselves in from year to the next. (W.A.)

• It was interesting to note the four schools in the same state as mine that were of similar ilk weren't even considered as the same ilk by the department. We have 250+ children. One school is in the same district as us - that school has only 20 children. Another is a different level school with 80 children. Two others are located in the state capital, and both have over 500 children.  Considering the diversity of our state, how can they accurately compare with my school? The two smaller schools have no data to compare for two year levels!

• It is very disappointing to see data used so simplistically and seemingly inaccurately as that appearing on the My School website. Our ICSEA score for the suburb (as I understand it) is not representative of our student population, as we attract students from nearby suburbs, and our % of disadvantaged students is representatively greater than our school suburb would suggest. It seems totally unfair that students from a non-English speaking background and those recently arrived from a New Arrivals Program are not acknowledged anywhere! We have 35% of students from a non-English speaking background. We are a metropolitan school and were compared with 42 country schools in the cohort of 60. There were only 4 other metropolitan public schools in the whole comparison across Australia, and there were 21 private schools (many country). We were compared with only two other public schools in our state, both of which were country schools. It is beyond belief that we would be considered statistically compatible with that cohort! The colour coding on the charts seems so damaging and does not reflect the hard work of our dedicated teachers.

• We are rather bemused by the list of like schools in our group and find the whole ICSEA criteria and formula a convoluted mystery. We are a small school in a rural area catering for the full 12 years of schooling. To be compared with the large secondary schools and small private primary schools in the eastern states is quite ludicrous. The whole colour coding of the NAPLAN comparisons then is quite misleading and demoralising for our teachers, students and the community. As for choice of school, our nearest school is over 50 kilometres away with no transport access. As usual, all these programs, processes, etc., are metro-centric and ignore the complexities of rural and remote.

• I haven't bothered to read it. We already know the situation in remote Indigenous schools, and we are dealing with educational issues as best we can. Believe it provides no relevant information for our school and community.

• In a recent article in the local newspaper, the writer discussed several Principals’ responses to the My School website. One section of the article listed the ICSEA score for 4 local schools, and a parent yesterday told me she thought that was the test score. My school is a disadvantaged school, so our ICSEA was lower than the others mentioned. It gave the parent the wrong impression.

• One of the parts of this initiative that is so wrong is that the comparisons between schools takes no account of the number of students with Disabilities in any particular cohort doing the tests. For example, 23% our Year 5 group last year were Students with Disabilities with Negotiated Education Plans. Some of these had little hope of completing much of the test, but we get them to do it for the experience. The whole system encourages ‘preparing’ the students for the test, and I have the feeling that DECS personnel, state and federal politicians would be more than happy for schools to use ways to get the school’s, the state’s and the nation’s results up. (S.A.)

• I have a concern that when parents are comparing nearby schools, the number of students exempt or absent can impact hugely on the school's averages. Example: a nearby school with what appears exceedingly high Year 3 results had 54% sit the test, 31% exempt and 15 % absent. (similar figures for Year 5 & 7). We had 95% sit the test at the same year level. This information (exemptions, absences) is not obvious to anyone looking at the site as they have to go to "results in bands" and then scroll down. This was a source of annoyance for a group of parents who spent time analysing our results and that of nearby schools. They didn't feel the information was a true reflection of the schools. (S.A.)

• I am all for transparency, but have considerable concern in relation to the use of the ICSEA. If we are a school targeted by DEEWR as one with students of high educational disadvantage, I am not sure how we can also be a school with a reasonably high education advantage, as is indicated by our ICSEA. In speaking with ACARA, I have been unable to gain an insight into why this is our reality. Although not based on statistically significant data, I think that at least one aspect related to this discrepancy must be associated with ‘people who do not speak English well’. In our community at least, when students arrive not speaking any English, or only minimal English, just because they have been in Australia for more than 12 months doesn’t mean they are able to catch up on all the learning that would have occurred for students who have been speaking English for all of their lives. (S.A.)

• I have sent out a letter to all the families at this school because we are feeling the impact of thisweb site quite dramatically. We basically have 2 sections a mainstream, general suburban primary, and the New Arrival Unit. All our students sit the NAPLAN (apart from those under the newly arrived time limit status). The My School site included all our NAP Year 3, 5 and 7 results and being in a relatively high social-economic area (our index is quite high) this isn’t reflected in the ICSEA value (our similar schools include 2 Grammar schools). The difficulty this is causing us is that we are in a high area for families “shopping around” for a school. A look at our table is totally misleading. I have already had two “no shows” from a young family to look at the school which is unusual, one family went to enroll their daughter at another school because our results are bad (their words) based on the information on the site. Some members of our Governing Council have said that obviously the “problem” is with the JP teachers (both have been at the school a while) and two harder working more dedicated teachers would be hard to fine. The Governing Council (some of them) thought the best idea was to just teach what is in the tests. Leave all that other “stuff” until after lunch and for the next term just “do” maths and English. We are already struggling with numbers and to add this layer of complexity is unwanted to say the least. (S.A.)

• It concerns me that incorrect data is not corrected before it goes up on the website. For example, two of our students were coded exempt, yet they were overseas on holidays. QSA (Queensland Studies Authority) said that, as this was a school error and not theirs, they would not fix it. In a school the size of ours, our Year 3 class who was one of the top performing cohorts in the state had a red flag on its Percentage Of Students Below National Minimum Standard due to this error. Should it matter who made the error? If the QSA can fix an error they made, shouldn't they fix any error that was genuine and brought to their attention in a timely fashion? Isn't the idea that if the data CAN be corrected it should be before being used by My School? Additionally, our school has over 30% of newly arrived English Speakers. Often 10-20% of our cohort have only started learning English, given they've only been in Australia for a few months, and as a result sometimes need to be exempted as they couldn't begin to complete the test. Therefore, the data doesn't capture circumstances like this to enable parents to factor in these "stories" when viewing the site. (Qld)

• We are (a large school) with 93% NESB (high ESL). One glance at the similar schools showed comparison with a "School of the Air" in another State. I exited the site and have not been back. (N.S.W.)

• As a result of the (My School) web site, we have received about four phone calls from parents wanting to relocate to our school due to the My School data results. I find this very disappointing and feel for my colleagues who have had to justify and explain the raw figures that have been used to rate schools. I believe that parents who have contacted us attend schools that are excellent and look after the wellbeing of the complete child. Things such as self esteem, social skills and problem solving ability all rate highly in these schools. It is a pity that the system has created this problem. The inquiries have direct results in one enrolment so far, and I feel more are on the way. This is despite lots of cooperation and communication between the leaders at both schools. (Vic.)

• I am glad that the association is endeavoring to have Government bodies put protocols in place to safe guard the use and potential misuse of NAP data. The political mileage from the My Schools website release is already being clocked up. History shows that whilst these ranking exercises don’t necessarily improve quality in “real” schooling (a complex and sophisticated process), they do win votes. It is educating the media to report these issues with intelligence that is the real challenge, I feel. Oversimplifying information is merely subtle misrepresentation of the truth – particularly with something as complicated as measuring the effectiveness of schools. The loser in all of this will be our kids I am afraid. We ignore issues such as anxiety and child burn out at our peril. How will governing bodies deal with the heightened importance that NAP has been given through the My School website? I will tell you – they will tighten the organization prior to the tests, they will mandate the content to be taught, they will produce more stringent guidelines in how schools conduct tests – impartial examiners, rows of desks in halls HSC style. The pressure of this will be felt all the way down the line – stopping right at the size 5 feet of our 8 year olds. (N.S.W.)

• The website is going to be part of the educational landscape, so nothing we do or say can change that. However, I do think it is fair that the Government develop some protocols about how the information can be used, because it can be used in ways that are misleading. Parents need to be aware that each cohort of students is different, has different needs and strengths. I think the LBOTE numbers should be included on the site.  It might also be useful to included the stats on how many parents have withdrawn their students from testing. I do not mean children who are absent due to illness. (Vic.)

• Our school has quite good results relative to all the other State Schools in our town. We are pleased that the information on My School shows our development /progress /comparison between our 2008 and 2009 results. Interesting aspects of our data on My School are: Our school has a  student population of  approx 920 (2010), is in a metroplitan area and has a Socio-economic index is 1043:
  - in our suburb there are 3 private schools, all smaller and all have a lower index, therefore they are not similar schools. (all private schools in our suburb have a higher student teacher ratio than our school).
  - there are deemed only 2 similar State Schools in Qld - one has 15 students and is in a rural district in Nth Qld, one has 165 students and is in a rural district in Sth Qld.
  - many of the schools in our similar schools list from other states have a significantly smaller student enrolment.
  We do not have a problem with being compared with like schools, but we do not know what we are being compared with. Our solution has been to focus on the positive - our comparative NAPLAN results between 2008 and 2009  show an improvement….. But of course these are not the same students being assessed either!!! (Qld).

• As I studied my local results, I anticipated some bouquets and some brickbats when the parents saw that we did well in some areas, less well in others. The end result: two parents spoke to me about the results, and one of those simply asked why I had had so much to say about ACARA at the end of last year. In this town, where all schools passed on all available information about NAPLAN results as soon as they were released last year, the whole event was a bit of yawn. The comparisons were not seen as important. As for parents changing schools on the basis of the results: they made up their minds on what they were easily able to learn from friends and neighbours; they didn’t need a single snap-shot to inform them when they already had access to on-going videos. The parents here know that some of our classes are not as good as others in the town, just as they know that next year’s batch may be  different. They also know that a school’s performance involves more than a test score, no matter how useful that score might be in the overall scheme of things. (N.S.W.)

• Although our school was treated well in the media, it was concerning the way some other (nearby) schools were described. The ABC Online (report) was not brought to the notice of those schools or the district prior to airing, and therefore schools were not well prepared to respond to parent comments on something they had not heard, etc. Would be good if schools could at least have some warning that they were about to receive press - especially negative press. It is hard enough for schools in rural and remote areas, without this type of journalism. (Qld)

• The ICSEA score is a bit hard to rationalise. According to the website we have 79% of our students from families in the top two quartiles. Our EMA % is nearing 40%. The NAPLAN raw score shows no cohort improvement and doesn’t allow for mobility. In our grade 5 level we had more than 20% of students new to the school since the grade 3 NAPLAN, and there would be many schools with larger numbers of new students than this – we found this to be a significant impactor on the cohort. (Vic.)

• We are a small school, and so our data can vary greatly with just one non-performer on the day. Out of 10 students we had two special needs students as well. We also had data that was not included (good data) due to lower numbers. Hence, while our students perform well above state median, we are trying to narrow the gap for SFO (which we do not reach). Our My School page then looks dreadful. It will have a VERY negative impact on future enrolments due to parent ignorance (we have 61% in top quarter, and 22% in top middle). While the feedback they are saying is comparing our data as dreadful when they look at data from schools with 0 in both % as ours!

• Copy of an email sent to the My School people: "I am Principal of a primary school which last year had an SFO of 0.8896, which I believe places us around the 7th most disadvantaged school in the Victorian state system. On reviewing our data on the My School Website, I note that our ICSEA is the 2nd highest of our 5 neighbourhood schools and yet only one of them has an SFO anywhere near ours. Our clientele comprises 90% NESB, no Professional families, 2 families with semi-professional parents, around 20% annual mobility and about 14% refugees. This is the “highest” data among all bar 1 of our neighbouring schools and yet we end up as the 2nd highest ICSEA. So that I can report to School Council how this figure was reached, I’d appreciate your comment." (Vic.)

• I have concerns over the ICSEA rating given to our school and the statistically similar schools. Our school is part of the network which is the second most disadvantaged network in the country. While we may not be quite as disadvantaged as some schools in the network, we do have an SFO of .71, approx 60% NESB and  59% of families in receipt of EMA. However we have an ICSEA rating of 1000 making us average. Further, our statistically similar schools are nothing like us in make up of students or level of poverty. I would have expected to have 1 or 2 schools from our network in our similar school list, but there are none. Further, schools who service much more advantaged communities than ours have come out with ratings in the low 900s. It makes me wonder at the accuracy of the data and how reliable it is. It appears that they are trying to use a blunt instrument to highlight delicate differences. (Vic.

• Thank you for your efforts in looking into this issue – we are very concerned here about the site and its ramifications, particularly up in this area where the parent population can be pretty volatile and move kids from school to school at the smallest pretext. We also have the Principal of a larger school (enrolment 250 plus) not far from here (we have an enrolment of 55) who chases enrolments from smaller schools. My School gives him extra ammunition, as our data can be significantly affected by small numbers of kids taking NAPLAN tests – for example we had eight Grade 5 students take tests last year, and three of those have acknowledged learning issues.
  
  I have teachers at this school who are significantly stressed by the Prime Minister’s promise to give parents a chance to rate and comment on teachers. Again, due to the volatility of some of our parents, they make assumptions about what happens in our classrooms based on their experiences at school 30 years or more ago, and also listen to inaccurate car park chatter. It is feared that they would “sink the boots in” given even the slightest opportunity.
  
  As a school community we are also concerned about publishing socio-economic indicators as it is felt these create bias against schools and communities seen as being either too advantaged or disadvantaged. Our school data shows 27% being in the “bottom category”, and a few of our parents now believe we are a poor school in a significantly disadvantaged community. These have even been rumblings about “new families” dragging the school down! (Vic.)
• We are happy that our results, when compared to statistically similar school and to the national averages, look great; but the tables in The Herald Sun simply have the results without the background data. My concern is that the atmosphere of the school, the extras as far as social programs, etc, are not there and that the socio-economic number is a farce, as it has not been explained at all. I felt so sorry for the schools that were named as the 5 worst in The Herald Sun for all areas of NAPLAN and also those named as the ones with the lowest ICSEA! This is more disgraceful than anything else. The quartile boxes mean little to me, and I don’t know how this is going to be portrayed by those schools in the inner east.
  
  The My School website seems to be against the equality data that was, I thought, behind the foundations of the Labor Party. I have heard from some Principals that the data has affected their enrolments – so timing also, is not spectacular. If it is to be given out, it should be after Census day so that each school is not disadvantaged after they have their staffing in place. Will the DECCD or DEEWR help schools who have been disadvantaged by the data being put out at this time? (Vic.)

• I am writing to express some concerns I have about the data on the My School website. My concerns are around the fact that the data is a reflection of two cohorts and two year levels only of the seven at any school. All schools have particular cohorts that are not as strong as others, and it just so happens that in 2009, my school’s lower performing cohorts happened to be Years 3 and 5. There are some very valid reasons for this. In my year 3 cohort, I have 6 out of 42 students who are not funded under the Program for Students with Disabilities so cannot be exempted from the NAPLAN testing, but have severe language disorders, intellectual disabilities and two who are autistic. This has skewed our data considerably, and in comparison to 2008 data it appears the school has gone backwards in a couple of different areas. A similar situation has occurred in Year 5. I fully expect that the school’s performance on this year’s NAPLAN testing will be significantly better, however when it comes to choosing a school for 2011, there would be parents who would use this information as a reason not to enrol their child and possibly not even bother to visit the school to find out about the great programs that operate. I am also concerned that there is the potential for Principals in neighbouring schools to use the data in an unethical way to improve their own enrolments, although I would hope this wouldn’t happen.
  
  There is insufficient space to include a blurb that accurately informs the public of the true contextual situation. My school is very sympathetic to students who have disabilities (we have an annex of Wantirna Heights school for autistic students here on site) whereas others actively discourage such students from enrolling. Schools such as mine should not be put in a position of being publicly shamed when so much valuable work is being done, particularly in the area of student welfare, i.e. improving student attendance, improving self esteem etc. Many of the students at my school are kinaesthetic learners, and my staff work very hard to address their learning style to engage them successfully in their learning. A student with this learning style is unlikely to perform well in a test that is geared to visual learners, but this piece of information is not available to parents. In my opinion, as a result of this website becoming live, many students will not be attracted to schools like mine, enrolments decline, funding declines, resources diminish and nothing changes!!! (Vic.)

• I think the ‘whatever’ method of pulling up data to support the social- educational advantage index rating for each school isn’t able to provide a really fair and accurate picture of where schools may really sit in relation to ‘educational advantage’ I think the whole process is a case of making judgement with insufficient accuracy and obviously no meaningful context with wish to use in making a judgement on school performance. The Sun newspaper very quickly presented a spread sheet ranking all schools and, no doubt, the process has caused so many Principals so much anxiety but will have little useful effect in terms of improving school performance. (Vic.)

• My concern is that the data for comparison is based on community figures and not real school socio-economic status.  We have 2 schools in our community – the “rich one” and the “poor one”. We are the “poor one and are compared in the like school group to the rich one, when we really should be compared to other ‘Like’ schools. I have sent his concern to the myschool email and got the standard response – linking me to the explanation of the community indexes – so they missed my point totally. Happy to have transparency – happy to share information – but let’s make it on a fair basis. (Vic.)

• We are a government school in Geelong with a current enrolment of 253 children. Following the release of performance data on the My School Website the following heading appeared in the local paper the Geelong Advertiser: “Grammar trumped, X Primary outshines elite on new website”. (Referring to Geelong Grammar.) It then went on to compare the performances of local schools and highlighted the fact that some government schools had outperformed local, prestigious  private schools. While we were thrilled to have achieved excellent results, this in fact has been the case for many years and rich information about our school and its context has been available to the public via our Annual Report on our website for several years. We were very disappointed that the context of the media report was comparative and derogatory towards some excellent local schools. The following is from our school newsletter:
  
  By now most people will have heard of the federal government’s My School website that provides data on Australian schools. he performance element of this data, the NAPLAN results, is not new – parents have been receiving these results for their child for several years. Victorian schools have also published this data in Annual Reports and posted these on their school website for a number of years. NAPLAN testing takes place once a year for children in Years 3 and 5. While the information is valuable, it only provides one snapshot of student learning and no context.
  
  Victorian government primary and secondary principals are concerned about the potential misuse of the data on the My School site.
  
  Our concerns were proven to be true after reading last Saturday’s Geelong Advertiser. While the articles themselves were particularly favourable for us, it was exactly the sort of thing principals did not want to see. An article comparing excellent schools on such narrow data and condemning the performance of one over another does nothing to help anyone. The sensationalist heading used in one article in particular was very unfair and disrespectful to Geelong Grammar, which is an outstanding school that has always worked generously with our schools.
  
  What most people don’t realise is that schools work together all the time, regardless of what sector we are from. For many years I joined with staff members from Geelong College and Geelong Grammar to organise the Year 6 debating competition that our children still enjoy today. We share staff, ideas, expertise and at times facilities in order to get the best result for all of our children. Even today, several local principals including the principal of Geelong Grammar’s Bostock House, share our newsletters with each other via email. We learn from each other and help each other frequently. We are part of a vibrant educational community that works together for all children, regardless of whether the school is government, catholic or independent.
  
  Our students all deserve the best education we can provide – without the shame, blame and media silliness we saw recently. Check out the website but please keep it all in perspective. (Vic.)
  
  
• Something the data takes no account of is the number of children who receive tutoring. A teacher I know in another school told me 75% of her Grade 1 children go to Kumon or some other similar program. (Vic.)

• According to our jurisdiction we are a very disadvantaged school, but on the My School website we have been compared to other communities which are quite middle class, because the ICSEA rating is about the community not the school population. I have put in a call to the help line stating this but have heard nothing back from them. We fared quite well in the state comparisons last year when we were stacked up against other similar school profiles but look dreadful compared against middle class communities. I have a struggling school that has difficulty attracting middle class community families as they opt for private schools. Now it will be even worse, and we won't be able to redress this disadvantage. (Vic.)

• I would be interested to know the amount of funding provided for setting up, maintaining and advertising the My School website - it’s been overload on TV and media – all at a substantial cost. Shame that some of this couldn’t be redirected to supporting those students who were below National Benchmark. The Even Start tutorial program had a few administrative complications, but it did provide targeted funding to students who needed it – if only in one area. Now there is no money – schools must find it themselves out of already stretched funding and the web resources are not even available! (S.A.)

• First of all, I want to make it clear that I do not have any philosophical objections to providing parents with this sort of  information. Transparency is a good thing. However, I am very concerned about the seemingly arbitrary way the groupings of so-called similar schools were established. In my opinion, there are some very illogical and inexplicable groupings. My bigger concern has to do with the so-called 'League Tables' that newspapers have been allowed to create. I believe that such misuse of the information should be banned. It  is inaccurate, invalid and damaging. (N.S.W.)

• Our school has moved from a period where no information was provided to our parent community and minimal to staff. In this time our literacy and numeracy results were very poor, in relation to like schools, in fact they were the poorest of the most disadvantaged schools in our category. Yet, little was done to move the school forward. In the last few years the school has worked hard to improve and has begun to bridge the gap - not only within our category of most disadvantaged schools, but also with state averages. In working with the parent community and Governing Council we have made our data more transparent, supporting the school to target literacy and numeracy to far greater levels of explicitness and depth. This has led the school to achieve great progress and achieve results amongst the highest performing schools nationally within like school categories at year 3 and 5 levels. This has only been through extremely hard work of staff and total focuses on literacy and numeracy for staff professional learning, leading to common agreements for the teaching of literacy. The MySchool website has brought even further satisfaction to staff and our community that we are on the right track and have bridged the gap between school and national averages. It also brings recognition from outside the school that we are on the right path forward.  (S.A.)

• One section of our data is heavy in pink. Of course, when we know that the data represents a group of only 8 students, 4 with significant learning difficulties who have recently arrived at the school and 1 with a severe disability, the data makes sense. In fairness and with respect to the children and their families, I am not going to reveal the picture behind the ‘pink’ banding. How proud the parents, teachers and children were about the progress made by these children in such a short time. These families and children know exactly were their learning is at and how they compare to others. And what about the child who excelled in that cohort? How does the pink band reveal her story and the story of the 2 other children who in each area were in bands 3 and above. The story is greater than the banding, but the story won’t be part of the pink picture that will be used to help parents ‘shop around’. I remember being an ESL student at school and the lesser feeling attached to having a label. I hope that the children don’t begin to see themselves as ‘PINK’ people. (S.A.)

• 73% of our students are in the bottom 25% on the educational advantage scale (as stated on the website). I was greeted this morning by a student who said, "Hi, Heather  – did you know we have 73% at the bottom?” I replied, “What do you mean?” He said, “We have 73% of students who are BAD!” (S.A.)

• The ICSEA rating for my school does not match South Australia’s rating for disadvantage. How can two schools be in the statistically similar group – according to ICSEA – when one is a Category 3 and the other is a category 6, according to the State’s criteria? Alignment for all states and territories is essential. (S.A.)

• We are already hearing from colleagues in other disadvantaged schools that parents are moving their children to another public/private school with a stronger performance based entirely on the my school website information. We have lost 1 to the local catholic school with better performance in NAPLAN. This is hard to take when we know we are making a real difference in distance travelled and progress for each student. We enjoy the confidence and support from most families – however over 70% ESL makes it tough!!

• As the principal of the school, I am alarmed that the data from cohorts as small as 5 is being presented. In our small community it identifies the children as being "a bright year level" or a "dumb" year level. I have always put up data for cohorts of 10 or more, and in my annual reports do not put up data (and say so, and why) for groups smaller than that. These reports  have been up on the web over the past few years. If a change cannot be made, then at least on the opening page next to the year level don't put what percentage sat the test in the school but how many students sat the test in the school. This year for our Year 3 and Year 7s, it was 5.  By the way, children in Year 7 in the small schools surrounding Clare HS (Year 7 - Yr 12)  can elect to either go to Clare High in Year 7 or stay in their small school. I traditionally leave the decision to parents, but last year recommended that four students in particular, stay at Blyth because we could offer more 1:1 support than the High School. These 4 students have struggled academically throughout their schooling but gained immensely by having roles as team captains and school leaders in Year 7 (SRC, etc). The data makes no account of this, and if someone looked at the website, they would think we are not doing a good job by our Year 7s. By the way, these students have the same teacher as the Year 5s (who did well in the tests)  in a 5/6/7 class. Julia's suggestion of parents coming to schools to find out what's going on would break all rules of confidentiality if this was explained. (?)

• I was very disappointed yesterday to hear from a parent who has been transferred to a regional town and had visited the My School website  and noted the level of Indigenous students at one school being considered. I got the impression that this would affect their choice of school in this town. Why include the percentage of Indigenous students but not the ESL or Special Needs students ? I tried to then have a discussion about other components of a school that should be considered other than scores and population. (S.A.)

• I have had my line manager come down really hard with criticism in an almost threatening manner, despite running through each of our (small number) individual student's circumstances (2 were IM and 1 extreme family trauma) with me last year.

• I would like to share our very negative experience that we believe is blatant misuse of data by a local politician. The local member has gone to the press to use our year 7 data as a political tool to put forward his case that the government did not build a 6-year high school but rather a junior and middle school. Our data is poor due to many reasons and is inaccurate given the social backgrounds of the students and their special needs. The secondary component of the school is not in the same like school group as the primary section. The school community is angry about his use of our data. It is extremely sad for the families of our school families and I have already had to meet with several parents.

• My school last year was top 10 of the most disadvantaged schools in this state. On reviewing our data on the My School Website, I note that our ICSEA is the 2nd highest of our 5 neighbourhood schools and yet only one of them has a state disadvantage measure anywhere near ours. Our clientele comprises 90% NESB, no professional families, 2 families with semi-professional parents, around 20% annual mobility and about 14% refugees. This is the “highest” data among all except 1 of our neighbouring schools and yet we end up as the 2nd highest ICSEA.

• Thank you for your efforts in looking into this issue – we are very concerned here about the My School website and its ramifications, particularly up in this area, where the parent population can be pretty volatile and move kids from school to school at the smallest pretext. We also have the principal of a larger school not far from here who chases enrolments from smaller schools. My School helps him as our data can be significantly affected by small numbers of kids taking NAPLAN tests – for example we had fewer than 10 Grade 5 students take tests last year, and 3 of those have acknowledged learning issues. I have teachers at this school who are significantly stressed by the Prime Minister’s promise to give parents a chance to rate and comment on teachers. Again, due to the volatility of some of our parents, they make assumptions about what happens in our classrooms based on their experiences at school 30 years or more ago, and also listen to inaccurate car park talk. It is feared that they would “sink the boots in” given even the slightest opportunity. As a school community we are also concerned about publishing socioeconomic indicators as it is felt these create bias against schools and communities seen as being either too advantaged or disadvantaged. Our school data shows 27% being in the “bottom category” and a few of our parents now believe we are a poor school in a significantly disadvantaged community. There have even been rumblings about “new families” dragging the school down!

• It is stated (in your letter) that APPA supports the principle of transparency. Surely we cannot align the My School website with transparency. My concern is with clarity of the above and the view of APPA before making further presentations to the Government.

• My School data is very misleading for small schools. I am not sure what the statistically valid number, is but as an example I know that my current cohort of grade 3s will struggle with the NAPLAN this year:
  In 2010: 1 has come from another school and has a sibling with a disability in a special school; 2 have repeated a year and have been tested for DNI and have fallen out of the range (just); 1 is average; and 1 is very capable.
  In 2011: 3 have repeated a year, and 2 of these are DNI; 1 is to be tested for DNI - a new student; and there are 6 other students. If I have the same cohort of students who are now in grade 1 take the grade 3 NAPLAN test, our data will be excellent when they sit the test in 2012.  That has nothing to do with the teaching but everything to do with the standard of learning of these students.
  In 2012: 6 should be fine; 1 has a language difficulty and will be tested for DNI.
  In 2013: 1 has English as a second language;  1 has autism;  1 is being tested for DNI and will fall within range; and 6 should be fine.
  So, if "they" are looking for improvement over time, I should definitely be able to demonstrate this in 2012 providing the cohort is the same as it is now.

• A metaphor from a member: