Better Education website ranks Adelaide primary schools

Adelaide’s public primary schools are matching up to the academic results recorded by independents, a website’s analysis has shown. See how yours fares.

Public schools are matching up to expensive independents when it comes to academic results, an analysis of Adelaide primary schools has found.

The Better Education website has ranked campuses in the city based on their 2021 academic results, with state schools accounting for 22 of the top 50.

Schools were given a maximum achievable score of 100, with that mark allocated to seven Adelaide campuses.

They included Dara School, Park Holme; St Peter’s Collegiate Girls, Stonyfell; St Peter’s College; Linden Park Primary; St Andrew’s School, Walkerville; Wilderness School, Medindie; and Pembroke School, Kensington.

While Linden Park topped the performance list for government primary schools, it was joined in the top 20 by Rose Park, Glen Osmond, Highgate, Parkside, Richmond, Burnside and Walkerville.

Better Education’s website says the organisation aims to provide “informative and comparative school results … including school rankings or ratings and lists of best performing schools, to parents wanting to make ­choices about schooling for their children”.

It gives limited detail on how its ranking tables are created, but refers to “school academic results” for primary and secondary students.

Andrew Bills, Flinders University’s Educational Leadership Academic: Policy, Politics and Practice, said Better Education “feeds off MySchool data available for free in the public domain and gains revenue through advertising and premium subscriptions”.

Dr Bills said Better Education appeared to largely use NAPLAN results to rank schools.

“What we need are more holistic measures of schooling impact including attention to the capabilities young people need to flourish in study, work and life, how schools can best support student wellbeing and much needed … research on how young people are faring in their learning, work and life,” he said.

Education Minister Blair Boyer. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

SA Primary Principals Association president Angela Falkenberg was unsurprised that the public schools ranking the highest were based in higher socio-economic areas.

Mrs Falkenberg said the improvement in students’ academic results should be in the spotlight, rather than the raw scores achieved at each school.

Aside from academic results, she said parents also valued sports and other activities offered at schools, alongside their ability to foster good problem-solving skills and compassion.

Education Minister Blair Boyer said he was focused on ensuring students’ wellbeing was a priority in schools, alongside academic results.

Catholic Education SA director Neil McGoran. Picture: Mike Burton

“We have a plan for teaching quality that includes ensuring specialist subjects are taught by teachers, increasing teacher permanency, offering 400 scholarships to help with the costs of studying teaching and working with universities to set a minimum ATAR for teaching degrees,” he said.

Glen Osmond Primary principal Garry North said his school last year recorded big improvements in its NAPLAN results across the board, but each year brought new challenges.

“You can’t get the high results and say your work is done because there’s always another group (of students) that will need a slightly different approach,” he said.

Better Education’s website does not provide contact details, and did not respond to The Advertiser’s attempts to contact the organisation via its online inquiry system.

A business search identifies Dong Mei Wang, and Hong Bing Wang, as directors of Better Education – both of Carnegie, Victoria.

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