The latest provincial assessment results indicate Bow Valley students are exceeding provincial standards.
With the 2013-14 Diploma Exam and Provincial Achievement Test (PAT) Grade 6 and 9 assessment results being released, area schools have demonstrated a strong delivery in subjects like mathematics, English language arts, science and social studies, among others.
Canadian Rockies Public Schools (CRPS) garnered the results from four of its schools and Superintendent Chris MacPhee said he was extremely satisfied with results across the board.
“I’m pleasantly pleased and surprised in a number of different areas that (CRPS students) have increased results in and continue to do so and I attribute that to the work our teachers are doing with engaging students and changing their teaching pedagogy,” MacPhee said.
The results included a high rate of participation among CRPS students, which were above the provincial rate in most subjects.
Mathematics stood out for Bow Valley Grade 9s in the Provincial Achievement Tests, where the provincial acceptable standard was 65.9 per cent and excellence standard was 16.9 per cent.
According to the province, Alberta finished third highest in math. It takes five years worth of data to accumulate provincial trends; national trends propose Alberta is on par with the Canadian average and has improved since 2010.
Additionally, Alberta achieved the highest marks in Canada in science, and were second highest in reading.
Students from CRPS as well as Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Academy achieved over 10 per cent higher than the acceptable provincial standard at 80.2 per cent and 89.3 per cent. For the standard of excellence, Our Lady of the Snows scored over 10 per cent higher, and CRPS was over five per cent higher than provincial standards.
Furthermore, students in Canmore and Banff were above acceptable provincial standards in English, science and social studies.
During the Canmore Collegiate High School academic award ceremony, 196 students were on the school’s honour roll in 2013-14, which is proportionally one of the highest numbers ever at the school.
MacPhee praised CRPS teaching staff and said the work commitment to change their teaching according to how children learn today by utilizing professional development opportunities available is directly related to the results seen.
“The work we’re doing is a foundation and research shows the single most important variable that we can apply is the quality of teaching in the classroom. That will impact student achievement. so our goal with professional learning is to increase the quality in the classroom,” MacPhee said.
Vincent Behm, principal of Our Lady of the Snows was proud of the results his students produced, and reiterated having a strong staff to attribute to the solid performance from students.
Grade 3 students did not write the PATs as it is being phased to pilot the new digital Student Learning Assessments (SLA). The provincial government says the SLAs will “better identify” student learning needs for parents and teachers at the beginning of each school year.
The Diploma Exam results from June 2014 at CRPS indicated students performed above the province’s acceptable (above 91 per cent) and excellence standards in Math 30.2, 30.1, Biology 30, Chemistry 30, English 30.1, and Physics, while Social Studies 30.1 was about the acceptable standard. Biology and Physics were both above 50 per cent in excellence.
At École Notre Dame des Monts, for Grade 6 students the acceptable level attained for English language arts was 85.7 and excellence was at 35.7; in math, acceptable 78.6 and excellence, 14.3; science, 97.9 and 28.6, social studies, 100 and 14.3 and in French, 92.9 at acceptable and 21.4 excellence.
