Private school takes out Bundy’s top spot in NAPLAN

NAPLAN results for Bundaberg schools have been released. See where your school ranked.  

Despite the challenges of Covid, school students across the Bundaberg region have received top marks for this year’s NAPLAN tests.

St Luke’s Anglican College has more than one reason to celebrate this year; with the private school taking out the top spot for both Primary (952.6) and Secondary School (1148.6) in the Bundaberg region.

Principal Craig Merritt said he, along with his teaching cohort, was “very impressed” with how students fared in the recent test, especially amid the impacts of the pandemic.

“We support the NAPLAN testing at St Luke’s because it gives us a really strong insight into how our curriculum is progressing,” Mr Merritt said.

“It allows us to use a point-in-time test to then see how a student is progressing, so it’s looking at how they’ve progressed from the past and how they’re moving through each time.

“We use those tests to then do our own internal benchmarking of our curriculum to see how that’s going.

“We don’t support external tabling against schools. This, for us, is our own race. This is about how our students are progressing.”

Mr Merritt said the school encouraged students to see NAPLAN as an “academic challenge”, with everything learnt in the classroom naturally preparing them for the test.

“We don’t make our students prepare endlessly for NAPLAN,” he said.

St Luke's Anglican College has received top marks in the Bundaberg region for NAPLAN for both Primary and Secondary Schools. Left to right: Academic Captain, Hamza Abid (Year 12), Chapel Captain, Keira Bosch (Year 12) and Principal Craig Merritt.

The Principal said there wasn’t any secret to his students’ high performance in the NAPLAN, owing it to an ideal blend of teacher and family support.

“Our teaching and learning culture is very focused here at the school and we ask our students to do well,” Mr Merritt said.

“We have high expectations for the teachers and students in terms of their learning.

“Our teachers are very professional, they’re very dedicated, and even from the really young years from the early learning centre all the way up to year 12 they're there to help students on their journey of growth and learning throughout the year.

“We’re very fortunate to have that as a very key culture at our school.

“It’s also about having the families who are dedicated and committed to the education of their children and they support and embrace what we do at the school, which is a critical part to the journey of a student.”

While Mr Merritt humbly accepted that his school received top marks for NAPLAN, he acknowledged Bundaberg had a treasure trove of teachers who were committed to their school students.

“We have excellent teachers throughout the region, and we’re blessed to have committed, dedicated teachers throughout all the sectors here in Bundaberg.”