Somerset College is top of the Coast class

STAYING the course in Gold Coast education is proving a winner, with one-stop private schools offering prep to Year 12 education leading this year’s NAPLAN results.

The results, released by the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority yesterday, show schools that offer a consistent teaching experience scored heavily.

Somerset College at Mudgeeraba topped the list among Gold Coast schools when the scores for every test among years 3, 5, 7, and 9 were tallied.

The non-government school boasts a student population of 1438 from Prep to Year 12.

King’s Christian College was second among primary schools and A.B. Paterson was runner-up in the high school category.

In the public sector, Broadbeach State School performed best among the city’s primary schools while Benowa State High School was the highestrated high school.

Overall, this year’s results rated on a par with last year’s finds.

Prep-to-Year 12 (P-12) public school Varsity College also rated well in each category.

Professor Donna Pendergast, the Dean of Griffith University’s School of Education and Professional Studies, said the prominence of independent P-12 schools could be due to providing a less disruptive education.

“One of the things about P-12 is the transitions tend to be internal and less disruptive to learning,” she said.

“Primary students could also benefit from older students as role models on campus.”

This year’s NAPLAN results do not come without controversy as at least a quarter of Year 9 students across the state were failing to meet the minimum writing standard.

Professor Pendergast said the process could be done better.

“I think it is not so much that NAPLAN is bad, it is just very narrow.

“It only measures a certain thing in a certain way, it becomes seen as a proxy for learning outcomes,” she said, adding that the sector had moved faster than the testing. “What I think is exciting is the fact that principals are thinking about more than NAPLAN,” she said.

Somerset College headmaster Craig Bassingthwaighte said the education landscape in the beachside city was often underestimated.

“There are some great schools on the Gold Coast. You need to be on your game down here, we are really pleased to be part of that landscape,” he said.

At Somerset, the school is building its students to work in a future economy, he said.

“Around NAPLAN we don’t do a lot of specific preparation apart from the physical nature of the test.

“We are focused a lot on what is known as the 21st-century skills. This is things like critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and communication.”

Other schools focus on the basics. Stephen Wruck, from the Gold Coast Christian College, said: “We have a thorough grounding in numeracy and literacy (and) have constantly scored above national averages. NAPLAN is an important tool, among others that allows us to track the progression of students.”