‘Life has its struggles’: Why some experts want ATAR model changed but others say it should stay
Victorian education experts are calling for a review of the ATAR uni entrance system, but the status quo is backed by leaders from some high performing schools.
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Victorian education experts are calling for a review of the ATAR uni entrance system, but the status quo is backed by leaders from some high-achievement schools.
A number of principals from leading schools such as Carey Baptist Grammar, Wesley College and Monivae College have questioned the ATAR system, saying it leaves students feeling like failures.
However, not all school leaders agree.
Rabbi James Kennard, principal of Mount Scopus Memorial College, said the ATAR system was not perfect but was a good representation of student achievement.
“It is still necessary and important,” he said. “But universities need to find a way to take into
account other important aspects of student personality and ability.”
Greg Ashman, deputy principal of Ballarat Clarendon College, said it was important to remember that “no one thinks kids are just a number”.
“We can’t remove all the pressure; life has its struggles,” Mr Ashman said.
He said there were problems with alternatives to ATARs such as offering community service, which were open to gaming by affluent students.
But Peter Ellis, principal of Templestowe College, said up to 25 per cent of his cohort did a non-scored, non-ATAR pathway and more schools were heading in this direction.
“It’s about taking away the stigma and having larger numbers of students using TAFE to get to university,” he said.
“The current system is designed to make 70 per cent of the cohort feel less than average,” Mr Ellis said. “It’s not right that students do 12 years at school and then feel worthless as learners.”
Colin Axup, president of the Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals, agreed it was a good time to review the ATAR system.
“The ATAR is only one of many pathways for students to achieve success,” he said.
Dr Fiona Longmuir from Monash University said there was increasing disillusionment and disengagement in schools
“We know things like ATARs and other published measurement tools increase competition and pressure on students and also prescribe the type of learning that happens.
“It’s not working; we have to think about different ways,” she said.
These include learner portfolios and increased early entry pathways.
Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson said tertiary institutions often already
“take account of factors beyond ATAR like work experience, bridging courses, other qualifications, leadership and community service, equity, and special circumstances”.
Ramy Aljalil, general secretary of LaTrobe University Student Union, said his priority was breaking the current cycle of advantage.
He said the ATAR system “was not reflective of student capacity”.
Are four-day school weeks key to teacher crisis?
An elite Melbourne school considered introducing regular teacher-free days for senior students, as the merits of independent learning and four-day school weeks are debated in education circles.
High performing independent school Shelford Girls’ Grammar - with fees of about $35,000 a year for years 11 and 12 - told the Herald Sun it had discussed the possibility of teacher-free days for VCE students but had decided not to proceed at this stage.
The Caulfield school was open to innovative changes in the future, however, a Shelford spokeswoman said.
“We have done some thought raising around a potential asynchronous day once a week in a 10-day cycle for VCE classes,” she said.
“On the whole, our VCE staff felt that students were benefiting from in-person teaching following the remote learning from Covid, but we remain interested in data and feedback from our community about future possibilities.”
Asynchronous learning encourages students to work independently - without the supervision of teachers - in a similar way to the university study many students go on to pursue.
Shelford was “not implementing a four-day model”, the spokeswoman said.
It comes as the pros and cons of a four-day school week – introduced by thousands of U.S. schools that had struggled to recruit and retain teachers – is now being debated in some Australian education circles, amid a national teacher shortage crisis.
But the Victorian Department of Education told the Herald Sun it was not considering introducing four-day school weeks in its state schools.
Public schools are about 1000 teachers and school staff short, as the 2023 school year gets underway.
The “deeply concerning” teacher shortage has left more than 100 primary and secondary schools with 663 teaching roles to be filled, including almost 400 high school teachers and 180 primary school teachers.
The Herald Sun revealed in December the Victorian government was appealing to more than 40,000 registered teachers to return to the classroom – where there were more than 1700 job vacancies. However, just 100 additional teachers agreed to come back to the classroom in the month following the appeal.
A four-day school week has been rolled out in more than 1,600 schools across 650 school districts in the United States over the last decade, particularly in regional and rural areas.
The model is attractive to teachers, who gain three-day weekends, and also saves schools money.
But education director of Melbourne’s Grattan Institute, Jordana Hunter, said funding models for schools in Australia and the United States were very different.
The impact of any changes to the length of school days or weeks on student outcomes would need to be carefully tested in Australia before being seriously considered for our schools, she said.
“The international evidence is mixed. It could also affect different students in different ways – some students might be well set up at home to learn independently, while others really do need as much time with expert teachers as they can get. For them, shortening the school week could mean a serious backwards step for their learning. Schools also provide an important social environment for young people,” Dr Hunter said.
In Victoria, where many teachers were exhausted and burnt out from additional responsibilities like yard duty, supervising extra-curricular activities and constantly “reinventing the wheel” with lesson plans, a better solution to attracting and keeping teachers would be to “reboot the teacher career path by paying top teachers much higher salaries” and encouraging more collaboration, she said.
Course co-ordinator and lecturer for The University of Melbourne’s Master of Teaching, Dr Merryn Dawborn-Gundlach, said four-day school weeks and independent learning days could create more work for teachers with planning.
“I don’t see it as a panacea for teacher shortages because for one thing, if you did have a four-day week, you would have to give those students things to do that are related to their course and help with their assessments ... help their understanding. And that has to be all planned out,” she said.
“And I think a good teacher would want to see evidence of what students have done on that day they have not been at school.”
The concept of teacher-free days and self-directed study for senior students had been trialled previously by some Australian schools, with mixed success, Dr Dawborn-Gundlach, who has also worked in U.S. schools, said.
It was possible parents paying high feesto private schoolscould have concerns about their children spending less time being guided by teachers in the classroom, she said.
In the United States, the impact of a four-day week on both student performance in literacy and numeracy and teacher satisfaction, recruitment and retention is still being evaluated.
Existing research shows the four-day-a-week model may have a detrimental impact on English and maths development for those students who already spend a low amount of time at school, but not so for students who spend a medium to high amount of time in class and are engaged in their studies.
“The evidence suggests that the four-day school week is not detrimental for achievement per se, but that four-day school weeks implemented in districts with low overall time in school are likely to have meaningful negative consequences for student academic progress. Thus, maintaining adequate overall time in school should be a key consideration for school districts thinking about adopting this type of alternative school schedule,” the It’s Only a Matter of Time report concludes.
Another study into older students with a four-day school week in Oklahoma, published in June 2022, showed the model had a positive impact on student behaviour and had worked to decrease bullying incidents by about 39 per cent and student fighting by about 31 per cent.
The Effects of 4-Day School Weeks on Older Adolescents: Examining Impacts of the Schedule on Academic Achievement, Attendance, and Behaviour in High School report also showed the shorter school week had no detectable effect on student scores or attendance on other days of the week.
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