Excluding those students enrolled in Vista Virtual School, Grade 6 and 9 students within the Pembina Hills School Division are achieving acceptable standards at a rate nearly on par with the province in English Language Arts (ELA), Math, Science and Social Studies.
That’s according to the Provincial Achievement Test (PAT) results presented to trustees during their Nov. 13 meeting in Barrhead.
Board chair Jennifer Tuininga noted this information had been presented to trustees at an earlier meeting, but it was brought back to this meeting so that schools could analyze the data.
Assistant Supt. of Education Services Mark Thiesen said all Grade 6 and 9 students write the PATs in the four subjects, although French Immersion students also write tests for French Language Arts. However, French Immersion results were not specifically identified in his report “because we have such a small population” of those students, Thiesen said.
“It’s not necessarily compulsory (to write the PATs) — there are opportunities for students to opt out,” he said. “But for the most part, the idea is that all students write the PATs.”
Grade 3 students were also required to write PATs until 2014, when the government replaced them with Student Learning Assessments. However, the United Conservative Party (UCP) government has pledged to bring back Grade 3 PATs in the coming years.
Thiesen explained that the results are also presented in two formats: the “cohort” results, which include all the results of students registered in a grade; and the “writer” results, which are only the results of the students who wrote the tests.
Students who don’t write the test are counted as zero in the cohort results. Tuininga noted this issue “continually” comes up at zone meetings, as the province publicly releases the cohort results. Notably, the “cohort” results also include the results of Vista Virtual School students, while the “writer” results exclude them.
Why is there a separation? Thiesen said that participation by Vista Virtual students is very low at the Grade 6 and 9 level due to a variety of reasons, which are often tied to the reasons why those kids are in distance education. Because students who don’t write the test are scored at zero in the cohort results, that generally means the cohort results are brought down by the lack of participation within the distance learning program.
“That said, Vista Virtual has done a lot of work in the last year in particular highlighting the value and importance … of writing the PATs, and as a result, they’ve had a few more write the tests,” he said.
Further illustrating that point are the participation rates. In the cohort results, the number of Grade 6 students writing all four tests is barely on par with the province, while the number of Grade 9 students writing the tests is far below.
However, in the writer results, Pembina Hills’ participation rates far exceed the province in every subject except Grade 6 Math, where it is still 3.7 per cent higher than the provincial average.
Moving to the cohort results, Thiesen said that Pembina Hills students were achieving an acceptable standard (ie. a passing grade) at a rate that was generally on par with the province in ELA 6 and ELA 9, Math 6 and Math 9 and Science 6.
However, Pembina Hills students were far below the province at achieving an acceptable standard in Grade 9 Science, Grade 6 Social Studies and Grade 9 Social Studies, where only 60.1 per cent of Pembina Hills students achieved an acceptable standard, a full 8.6 percentage points below the province.
Thiesen then transitioned to the writer results, adding, “When you really get down to the purpose and the value of the PATs, we’re interested more in the writer results.”
Pembina Hills students were on par with the province in virtually every subject with only two exceptions: Math 9, where local writers exceeded the province by 5.5 per cent, and Social Studies 6, where local writers scored below the province by 5.3 per cent.
“If you recall last year and the year before that, we were significantly worried and concerned about how we were doing in junior high math, and we put a lot of effort and emphasis behind that,” Thiesen said. “I think this result does show … some of the emphasis of that work.”
Thiesen also presented the results from the Grade 9 Knowledge & Employability programs, which are taken by 10 per cent of all Grade 9 students that the division recognizes will be less successful in the regular stream.
Pembina Hills students taking the K&E programs greatly exceeded the provincial average in every subject, with 90 per cent achieving an acceptable standard in ELA, 91.5 per cent achieving that standard in Math, 90.6 per cent in Science and 88.2 per cent in Social Studies. “We excel in this area. Our students do really, really well in our K&E programs,” he said, acknowledging that this is a fairly small number of kids.
But how do the writer results compare to other years? Thiesen happily reported that there were no declines in the results of the Pembina Hills writers. In fact, the year-to-year results remained stable in all but four subjects where Pembina Hills students showed improvement: Grade 6 ELA, Grade 6 Math, K&E Math and K&E Social Studies.
Thiesen indicated it was a different story last year, as many courses had shown a decline in results.
Diploma exam results
Thiesen also presented the results of the Grade 12 Diploma Exams, which are written in 10 subjects. The results of diploma exams represent a full 30 per cent of a student’s course mark.
The diploma exam results of Vista Virtual School students are also separated from the rest of Pembina Hills, but this time it is because of their high participation. A full 47 per cent of the diploma exam cohort represent Vista Virtual students, Thiesen noted.
“In this case, Vista Virtual’s impact on Pembina Hills’ results is quite positive,” said Thiesen, suggesting it could have something to do with the nature of those students or their level of preparation.
He reported that Vista Virtual’s average marks and rates of acceptable standards were on par with the province in ELA 30-1, Math 30-1 and Physics 30-1. Vista Virtual students exceeded the province in ELA 30-2, Math 30-2, Biology 30, Science 30, Chemistry 30 and both Social Studies subjects.
As for the rest of Pembina Hills not enrolled in Vista Virtual, local students excelled in three subjects: ELA 30-2, Biology 30 and Science 30.
In ELA 30-2, 94.8 per cent of students achieved an acceptable standard, which was 7.7 per cent higher than the province. Their results have been consistent over three years.
In Biology 30, 88.5 per cent of Pembina Hills students achieved an acceptable standard, which was 4.6 per cent higher than the province. Their results have also been consistent over three years.
In Science 30, a full 92.9 per cent of students achieved an acceptable standard, which was 7.2 per cent higher than the province. Notably, Pembina Hills students have improved their results in this subject by 3.4 per cent since 2017.
Pembina Hills students were roughly on par with the province in terms of achieving an acceptable standard in ELA 30-1, Social Studies 30-2, Math 30-2, Chemistry 30 and Physics 30. However, it should be noted that the results of local students in Social Studies 30-2 have declined 6.6 per cent since 2017, while the results of Physics 30 have climbed 5.9 per cent since 2017.
Local Grade 12 students had the worst showings in Social Studies 30-1 and Math 30-1. In SS 30-1, only 80.4 per cent of students achieved an acceptable standard, a full 6.2 per cent below the province, while only 73.3 per cent achieved an acceptable standard in Math 30-1, a full 4.5 per cent below the province. It should be noted that Math 30-1 results have fallen by 6.8 per cent since 2017.
Thiesen also presented the average final mark for students in all 10 subjects, which represents their combined course and diploma exam results. Local students were on par with the province in ELA 30-1 and 30-2, Social Studies 30-1 and 30-2, Math 30-1, Biology 30, Chemistry 30 and Physics 30. They exceed the province in average final marks in Math 30-2 and Science 30.
Also, students have been showing improvement over the last three years in Biology 30, Physics 30 and Science, but their results have declined 4.0 per cent since 2017 in Math 30-1.
