Report reveals high cost of shifting schools

Shifting schools may set children back by about half a year in their learning, a new report says.

The new Ministry of Education analysis also shows that children achieve in line with the curriculum expectations in the first few years of school, but their progress slows as they get older and they are falling below expectations by intermediate and early high school years.

The analysis, based on electronic Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning (e-asTTle) tests, shows student achievement in reading, writing and maths varied hugely.

For example, in Year 8 maths, the top 5 per cent of students in high-decile schools achieved almost 1700 points on the testing scale, compared with about 1350 points for the lowest 5 per cent in low-decile schools — a gap equivalent to about seven years’ progress for the average child.

On average, students in Years 4 to 10 are expected to move up by about 50 points a year in maths and reading, and by about 58 points a year in writing.

Actual progress fell below this average in maths, but was much the same across all deciles, showing that schools neither narrowed nor widened the gaps that children entered schools with. But students who changed schools during Year 8 averaged 27 points behind students who stayed in the same school in maths, 23 points behind in reading and 28 points behind in writing — about a half a year’s expected progress in each subject.