Going the distance

More students with OP 1-5 results in 2019

THE Cairns School of Distance Education has come out on top as the Far North’s most improved school over the last decade with the release of 2019’s OP results.

The school’s OP per cent – the percentage of OP students who received an OP 1 to 5 – improved by more than 16 per cent between 2009 and 2019.

In 2009, four students from the School of Distance Education sat for an OP. One received a score between 1 and 5.

In 2019, 12 students sat for the OP and five received a high score.

Second place went to Brinsmead’s Freshwater Christian College with a 12.12 per cent increase, followed by White Rock’s Trinity Anglican School with an 11.78 per cent increase.

Freshwater Christian College scooped the pool with the highest proportion of high end results – 45.5 per cent – in the region in 2019.

Freshwater Christian College had a total of five students receive an OP between 1 and 5, out of 11 students who got an OP score.

St Augustine’s College, St Mary’s Catholic College, Peace Lutheran, Bentley Park

College and Trinity Bay State High School all recorded improved OP percentages.

“We are happy with the boys’ efforts,” St Augustine principal Matthew Brennan said.

“There’s a culture at St Augustine that they try their best in whatever they do, be it in schooling, culturally or sporting – they’ll get the results commensurate with those efforts.

“All the boys I have spoken to are moving forward into tertiary studies, TAFE or vocational training. The OP is important but it’s only one measure of a school’s success.”

With 97 students, Cairns State High School recorded the most pupils sitting for an OP in 2019. Of those, 17 received an OP between 1 and 5.

In 2009, 29 out of 149 students from Cairns high sitting for an OP received a high score. The numbers from the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority did not include comparative data for OP scores from OP6-25.