Six Year Graduation Rates
The Six Year Graduation Rate was a standard Ministry data set for a number of years, showing the percentage of students who graduate with a Dogwood from district secondary schools within six years of their grade eight school year. This allowed students five years to transition normally through the system, and gave one additional year to allow for mitigating events. The process for calculating this data changed for the 2019 publication to include BC resident students only. All Student BC Results have improved by about 4% because of this, as previous data was suppressed by International students who were enrolled in short term programs. Non-resident student participation in SD83 schools has been limited to this point, so local improvements resulting from this change were nominal.
SD83 has made some significant gains over the last few years in regard to the Six Year Graduation Rate. The SD83 All Students rate has closed within two percent of the provincial rate, and both the SD83 Indigenous Student rate and SD83 Students with Diverse Needs rate have made strong gains and passed their provincial comparators.
Five Year Graduation Rates
The longstanding Ministry metric of the Six Year Graduation Rate has been replaced in the Framing Enhancing Student Learning framework by the Five Year Graduation Rate, which is calculated in the same manner as before, but without the additional year for mitigating events. The charts below shows the percentage of All SD83 Students who graduated on time compared with the percentage of all the students in the province, broken out in a number of categories, along with the same data for Grade 11 to 12 Transition Rates. *Results for SD83 Students living On Reserve and Students Living in Care are masked when the number of students in these cohorts are too small to release and maintain privacy.
Provincial Literacy and Numeracy Assessments
The Provincial Numeracy Assessment was introduced for the 2017-18 school year. Completed by students in grades ten through twelve during an examination session of their choosing, the data from the first cohort served as a baseline for future cohorts. Results in the opening session were not encouraging provincially, but even less so locally, with our SD83 results showing below the province in all categories. Recent conversations with Ministry staff about the assessment have suggested a need to set different district goal, as the categories are designed differently and the Proficient level will not likely be attainable for the majority of students. The District Ed Directions Committee has recommended keeping the current goal in place and a redoubling of efforts to support practice. *Results for SD83 Students living On Reserve and Students Living in Care are masked when the number of students in these cohorts are too small to release and maintain privacy.
After three years of further development, the Ministry completed its first sitting of the new Literacy Assessment in the 2019-20 school year. In this session 67% of All SD83 Students were able to meet the standards of Proficient or Extending, just short of our District goal of 70%, and slightly under the provincial average. *Results for SD83 Students living On Reserve and Students Living in Care are masked when the number of students in these cohorts are too small to release and maintain privacy.
Foundation Skills Assessments
The Foundation Skills Assessments have been in place at the grade four and seven levels since 2004. School District No. 83 students have typically had their strongest results in the Writing Assessment, followed by the Reading Assessment. Results on the Numeracy Assessment have typically been our lowest results and continue to be an area of particular challenge for the District, especially for our Indigenous learners. Current data for writing results were not available and will be added later. *Results for SD83 Students living On Reserve and Students Living in Care have been masked when the number of students in these cohorts are too small to release and maintain privacy.
Core Competencies
This data considers the percentage of all students who can speak authentically to their learning, using the Thinking, the Communication, and the Personal and Social Core Competencies as the framework. This locally designed data set was collected through a survey of the local Principal and Vice-Principal group and is depicted from left to right in the pie charts below, which show Primary (grades K-3), Intermediate (grades 4-9) and Secondary (grades 10-12) age groups.
Results for December 2020:
This round of survey results indicate that there has been some progress in schools in regard to student core competency self-reflection. No schools reported that they were still in the initial stages with No tangible actions at this time (Blue). Most elementary and middle years schools have indicated that they are either Emerging (Orange) or On track (Green) with an increase in the on track category over previous years. Several schools have now indicated that they are Meeting or Exceeding Expectations (Red), which is also new for this year. Secondary schools are all still indicating that they are at the Emerging level in at least some classrooms and self-reporting on Core Competencies, though all students are showing the ability to do so during exit interview activities.
Student Learning Surveys
The Student Learning Survey is completed each spring across the province, asking students a series of questions regarding their school experience. For the Framing Enhancing Student Learning website, we are focusing on three specific questions regarding school connectedness. Results for students in SD83 for these three survey questions have typically mirrored provincial results. *Results for SD83 Students living On Reserve and Students Living in Care have been masked when the number of students in these cohorts are too small to release and maintain privacy.
Post-Secondary Transition
The final data set for the Framework for Enhancing Learning is Transition to Post-secondary. The charts below show transition rates for students one year after graduation and three years after graduation. Rates for students in SD83 have been consistently slightly lower than the provincial transition rates. Note that the data for this metric is not as current as it is for other metrics as it takes up to four years to collect information for a current SD83 cohort. *Results for SD83 Students living On Reserve and Students Living in Care have been masked when the number of students in these cohorts are too small to release and maintain privacy.
Other Assessments
The 83Learns sub-committee has identified the following district assessments in order to provide a more complete view of student learning as they transition from kindergarten all the way through grade twelve. These assessments include:
- K-9 SNACC (Student Numeracy Assessment of Critical Concepts)
- K-3 Essential Literacy Skills
- K-5 PM Benchmarks
- Kindergarten Screening Assessments
More Metrics on Student Learning
Click on the link below to travel to the Ministry of Education’s website where you can look at other indicators of performance and compare our results with other districts and the provincial averages: BCED System Performance
enhancingstudentlearning.sd83.bc.ca 