On data as a story
How the stories of HSC past might shape the learning of the future
This post is kind of a personal one. In Australia, this is the day that matters. Of course, every day that has led up to this has mattered, but this is the day each student and many schools are given a big fat number. All of these numbers - while they might be uncomfortable and even crude - matter.
For context for my UK and US readers: the Higher School Certificate is the final standardised examination at the end of 13 years of schooling. From this, students are given a number called an ATAR, which serves to rank every student in the state, but also to predict the likelihood of future academic success. It’s developed separately to the HSC and calculated by the Universities Admissions Centre; more ‘difficult’ subjects tend to have a greater impact on ATAR, in other words, they scale more attractively. So courses like medicine set their ATARs high, offering limited places and only to students theoretically smart enough to be trusted to stick a scalpel in someone. In addition to these numbers, the major state newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) publishes their own form of ranking, where they count the percentage of Band 6 (90%) results achieved as a proportion of overall examination entries by a school. It creates a lot of competition in the non-government sector.
There is a lot of hand-wringing about whether these examinations should exist at all - so far nobody has come up with a viable alternative, other than portfolios. It’s baffling to see a lot of public education advocates support this idea, naively underestimating the power of money to fill an application with a wealth of extracurricular, volunteering opportunities and internships. A system like this would undoubtedly put so many students at a disadvantage, those who may not have a ‘Mum’s Uber’ at their disposal, let alone the money that would go into developing a ‘holistic’ application.
There’s also concern that students choose subjects in an attempt to ‘game’ the ATAR weighting system, rather than subjects that reflect their strengths and interests. Then there’s the fact that the SMH school rankings are based on only top performing scores of 90 and above, not overall cohort achievement or growth. There are also the conflicting ideas about ATAR and character that I’ve written about here. It’s an understatement to say that there are mixed feelings about pretty much any big standardised test.
I work at a small school. I know and have taught every student in Year 12. I have met with many of them, even students who are not in my class 1:1. When many schools had closed, we were still in online lessons. Our agility gave us many opportunities to be responsive in a way that larger schools may not have been able to. But in many ways, our data is useless for analysing patterns year on year. It’s very difficult to use small cohorts to project or plan for the future. For us, the stories are everything.
We have had huge academic success this year. We are a model of school improvement and I can take pride in that. Our school placed around 300th in the state just a few years ago. The subsequent leaps have been from 100th to 64th and this year, top 50. We punch above our weight. Knowing every student is both a burden and a luxury, and while we served our top students incredibly well, it was the stories of perseverance and triumph that had me air punching this morning and demanding air-first-bumps from everyone in the room.
The data on its own is not going to help me in 2022. But here are some qualitative takeaways that showed up in the stories behind those big fat numbers.
Relentlessly high expectations will help most and hurt nobody
Personalised feedback works - now I need to find ways to make this more sustainable for myself
Talking about exam strategy might be distasteful and boring but it has an impact
Close enough is not good enough - great results this year can be comfortably great results next year
Patience, when you’re down to your last nerve, pays off
Regular exam-style formative assessment will drag most students along with you
Knowledge and memory matter, but are solidified when challenged.
Congratulations to all of my Australian colleagues have also been celebrating the successes of that kid who pushed through last year. It makes a year like 2021 worthwhile.