The public and catholic school boards that cover the Guelph area are seeing reading, writing and math test scores come close to or exceed provincial standards.
The Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) released results of last year’s provincial assessments on Wednesday.
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They include Grade 9 math tests, the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test, along with reading, writing and math exams for students in Grades 3 and 6.
The biggest takeaway from the results appeared to be Grade 9 applied math results that have been a concern in the past at the Upper Grand District School Board.
The board said 69 per cent of students met or exceeded the provincial standard, which is up from 63 per cent the previous year and from 58 per cent the year before. The provincial average was only 44 per cent.
Meanwhile, 54 per cent of students in the Wellington Catholic School Board’s Grade 9 applied math court met the provincial standard, which hasn’t changed from last year.
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“As the Ministry of Education continues to focus efforts on improving outcomes in mathematics learning and achievement, we too have made this a priority in our professional development planning for the 2019-20 school year,” Tamara Nugent, Wellington Catholic’s director of education, said.
Both school boards scored impressive results in academic math as 91 per cent of public school students and 88 per cent of Catholic school students met or exceeded the provincial average.
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Secondary schools in Wellington Catholic and Upper Grand continued to outperform the provincial average of an 80 per cent success rate on the literacy test.
The assessments in Grades 3 and 6 for each board follow closely in line with provincial averages. Upper Grand saw some dips with results from reading, writing and math all below provincial averages.
Grade 6 math scores were low across both school boards, but the provincial average was only 48 per cent.
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Upper Grand said the information released offers an opportunity to conduct an analysis of the results in order to identify best instructional practices.
“The data is used by school administrators and teachers to develop school improvement plans and specific action plans with the goal of higher achievement,” they said in a statement.
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