General News
30 March, 2022
St Colman’s tops Naplan results
ST COLMAN’S Primary School has proven a small school can make a big impact when its students were recognised for their reading growth in this month’s NAPLAN results release.
ST COLMAN’S Primary School has proven a small school can make a big impact when its students were recognised for their reading growth in this month’s NAPLAN results release.
Grade 3 to 5 students at the school recorded the highest percentage of above-average progress among private primary schools for reading.
St Colman’s Primary School principal Stacey Atkins said the students were thrilled to learn they had achieved the result.
“The kids were really pleased, as was the staff and parents,” she said.
“I think it’s a lovely recognition of lots of people’s hard work, especially during the last couple of years with how tough everything has been at schools.
“Schools everywhere, more than ever, need a real community effort so the efforts of the staff, the parents and the students are all coming together.”
Ms Atkins said the result was also a credit to former St Colman’s Primary School principal Tim Bourke, who departed at the end of last year.
“I’m very happy to celebrate the success of the school but it’s definitely a credit to Tim and what he’s led the school with,” she said.
With the result achieved during a year heavily impacted by COVID, which saw schools closed a number of times, Ms Atkins said the results supported the feeling the school was on the right track with how it had adapted to learning during the pandemic.
“We’ve had to reinvent how we do things, which is one of the silver linings when things are disrupted,” she said.
“You can find new ways of doing things, adapt and engage the students in a different way so it’s really nice that has worked for us.”
Ms Atkins said while it was wonderful for the students to achieve the results, the school prides itself on the development of students in areas beyond education.
A number of the students who were part of the class have since gone on to be part of the school’s leadership team, and are serving as role models for their younger peers.
“NAPLAN is in all the key learning areas, but it’s just one test on one day,” Ms Atkins said.
“While it is great to get good results, it is not the only thing we measure success on.
“It gets lots of press but it doesn’t measure how kind the kids are, how resilient they are, their work ethic and what good people they are.”
