A higher proportion of private and Catholic school pupils leave school with NCEA level 3 than other New Zealand schools, a researcher says.
Last week, educator Alwyn Poole discussed his research with Peter Williams on Taxpayer Talk, a podcast for the New Zealand Taxpayers Union.
Poole is a well-known figure in the New Zealand education system.
New Zealand’s most successful schools academically are private and Catholic schools, he told Williams.
“I have spent the last month acquiring and processing significant data on the leavers of every high school in New Zealand.
“This is far more important than the cohort data (by year level) that comes out in February.”
Poole told Williams he found Catholic schools have made tremendous strides, are far more personable than they used to be and have kept their standards extremely high.
“They set really high goals and standards for the kids and the children come up to them.
Catholic school pupils face “very high expectations with attendance and attention,” he said.
Qualifying his comment, Poole also said the Catholic schools were not perfect and not all were absolutely amazing. At the same time, he highlighted McAuley High School, a decile one school.
McAuley High School had 87.1 of their students achieving NCEA Level Three and nearly 66 percent of its students getting university entrance.
Poole says this compares favourably with some decile ten schools.
“Just because someone comes from a decile one background or goes to a decile one school, that’s not by any means 100 percent correlated with education failure, not even close,” he told Williams.
Poole also told Williams that some of the Catholic school success is a result of their being part of a counter culture, the challenge they put on each other and a culture of belonging.
They “talk about the culture of belonging and that when they enrol as students, they actually consider that they enrol a family,” Poole explained.
The following shows Poole’s comparison for schools in each decile by University Entrance achievement (schools with 75 or more students) and retention. All measure are for leavers across year levels.
- Top: Decile 10: Diocesan School for Girls – UE at 96.6% for leavers. Leaving before 17yo – 2.7%.
- Top Decile 9: Woodford House – UE at 96.2% for leavers. Leaving before 17yo – 3.8%.
- Top Decile 8. St Peter’s College (Epsom) – UE at 89.8% for leavers. Leaving before 17yo – 3.3%.
- Top Decile 7: Marist College (Auckland) – UE at 89.4% for leavers. Leaving before 17yo – 0.9%.
- Top Decile 6: St Catherine’s (Kilbirnie) – UE at 73.7% for leavers. Leaving before 17yo – 0.0%.
- Top Decile 5: Manukura (Palmerston North) – UE at 76.5% for leavers. Leaving before 17yo – 17.3%.
- Top Decile 4: Selwyn College (Auckland) – UE at 70.5% for leavers. Leaving before 17yo – 9.6%.
- Top Decile 3: Zayed College for Girls (very closely followed by Auckland Girls Grammar) -UE at 70% for leavers. Leaving before 17yo – 0.0%.
- Top Decile 2: St Paul’s College (Ponsonby) – UE at 84.1% for leavers. Leaving before 17yo – 4.5%.
- Top Decile 1: McAuley High School (Otahuhu) – UE at 65.8% for leavers. Leaving before 17yo – 3.9%.
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