The Average Difference from State report provides school staff with information to determine if their school has performed well in contributing to the learning of students based on their prior NAPLAN performance. It compares with similar groups in the state over the last 4 years.

How will this report benefit me?

The assumption is that prior results (NAPLAN9) partly contribute to predicting the HSC outcomes of students. We assume much of the remaining improvement students obtain can be attributed to the effectiveness of teaching strategies and programs in place at the school.

Therefore, this report is useful to see if programs targeted at teaching specific groups and differentiation practices have been effective. This report can help support evaluative practice of teaching programs and to review the performance of student relative to previous performance.

What does the report provide?

This report presents comparison data.

X-Axis

For the purpose of this report, students are grouped into low, medium or high achievers based on their NAPLAN9 band achieved.

Students who achieved Band 5, 6 or 7 in NAPLAN9 are grouped as “Low”, Band 8 as “Medium” and Band 9 and 10 are “High”.

Y-Axis

The Y-axis displays a continuum of achievement levels of student groups for the purpose of comparing the selected school, by achievement band groups with the NSW DoE Average (state).

Values are grouped as low, moderate or large variances from the average achievement of the state. The underlying value assigned is not significant, rather, it is a measure calculated to model the relationship between the average achievement in the state and the school’s average achievement by NAPLAN9 band grouping. Attention should be given to whether the difference from average is low, moderate or large.

The middle of the axis, with the value 0, represents the average achievement of the state combined with all subjects. Positive values (moving to the top of the graph) show that the school has performed better than the state on average. Negative values (moving towards the bottom of the graph) show that the school has not performed as well as the state on average. The greater the number from 0, the higher the difference from the school average.

Use the slicers to select a cohort and filter the data for further analysis:

• Cohort Enrolment year - the year the student was in Year 12 at your school
• School Name
• Gender
• Aboriginal
• EAL/D

How can I use the report to support teaching and learning at my school?

This report is useful when specific groups have been targeted for teaching programs. For example, a gifted and talented program may have been established to help extend the performance of high achieving students.  Similarly, an intensive program may have been implemented to lift the literacy of students who achieved lower bands in NAPLAN9. Changes in achievement over time against state average, could give an indication as to whether the program was effective.

What should I look for?

Unpredictably higher or lower achievement than expected could warrant further investigation of what may have attributed to the unexpected outcome.

Examining results of particular groups that were targeted with changed or intensive teaching programs, can help to determine if improved results were gained.

Consider changes from prior years as well as changes from state average.

Note that groups that contain less than 15 students for that data point are highlighted. Groups that have less than 10 students are not to be interpreted as these groups are too small to be statistically reliable.

Where does this data come from?

HSC, Enrolment data

How frequently is data updated?

Annually