Principal's Message
By Jo Jolly
Welcome to week two everyone!
What a delight it has been to come back to Parkhill and see our community again after Long Service Leave in Term 2! A big thank you to Dale who fitted into our school so well, and for all our admin team, teaching staff and families for supporting him over his time with us. In his handover to me, Dale commented on what a great school has been built here, and commended our students on their “Parkhill Pride”. On this note, I’d like to give a big shout out to the two-year levels who were on excursions last week: Y12 and Y34. Congratulations on representing our school so well while out and about: our junior school teachers’ returned to report that the Como house staff said Parkhill were their most enjoyable school they have had visit!
Returning also I notice our buildings and grounds works are still ongoing, and we await to see the community BBQ shelter get finalised, along with the final touches to landscaping down the side of our grounds. The community garden looks wonderful (thanks Kath. B&G and the Ashwood community garden team), and of course, our new mural painted by Jacquie and her volunteers really ties our plaza and new playground space together.
NAPLAN Results
During the holidays our preliminary NAPLAN results were released with exceptional results this year for Parkhill. As I have previously mentioned, some of the other measures of school achievement are not always public, and our school Attitudes to School Survey (the student measure), Staff Opinion and Parent Opinion Surveys (community measure) have been increasingly positive for us. NAPLAN can fluctuate because of many reasons, and this year we have seen the fruition of the past few years in our student results.
From an educative perspective, the conditions for learning need to be right for the achievement to follow. All the previous data sets mentioned above (student measures in particular) mean that supportive, safe and inclusive environments can have an academic flow on effect. This year our NAPLAN reflects all the deliberate and strategic work that has been done since our previous school review back in 2023. Our teaching staff and students have a lot to be proud of in the academic measures arena this year.
In Strong and Exceeding achievement bands this year Parkhill has these percentages of students:
| Domain | Year 3 % | Year 5 % |
| Reading | 83 | 100 |
| Numeracy | 89 | 97 |
| Spelling | 78 | 90 |
| Writing | 83 | 83 |
| Grammer & Punctuation | 72 | 83 |
Our results again compared to our network and like school category are also very pleasing:
| Strong and Exceeding Bands – Year 5 | ParkhillPrimarySchool % | Similar schools %(like socio- economic etc) | Network %(schools in our area) |
| Reading | 100 | 84 | 87 |
| Numeracy | 97 | 85 | 90 |
| Writing | 83 | 84 | 89 |
| Strong and Exceeding Bands – Year 3 | ParkhillPrimarySchool % | Similar schools %(like socio- economic etc) | Network %(schools in our area) |
| Reading | 83 | 80 | 83 |
| Numeracy | 89 | 78 | 85 |
| Writing | 83 | 88 | 90 |
While our writing results are slightly lower than like and network schools in both Year 3 and 5, we have increased our students in the “Strong and Exceeding” bands in Year 5 from 77% to 83% and held our Year 3 data steady. This will become a focus for our next Annual Implementation Plan.
Also very pleasingly, compared with other schools our students in the “Needs Additional Support” bands percentages are as follows:
| Needs Additional Support Band – Year 5 | Parkhill Primary School % | Similar schools %(like socio- economic etc) | Network %(schools in our area) |
| Reading | 0 | 4 | 3 |
| Numeracy | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Writing | 0 | 4 | 2 |
| Needs Additional Support Band – Year 3 | Parkhill Primary School % | Similar schools %(like socio- economic etc) | Network %(schools in our area) |
| Reading | 6 | 6 | 4 |
| Numeracy | 0 | 4 | 3 |
| Writing | 6 | 3 | 2 |
As a school of Parkhill’s size, it is worthwhile noting that 6% of a cohort can be one to two students.
Finally, our growth data between Y3 to 5 and Y5 to 7 continues to flourish and in Numeracy and Reading we rank higher than like and network schools. Our wellbeing metrics for students (probably for me personally) are the best measure of a school’s achievement, and we continue to have high positive results in our student surveys.
Congratulations to our students, support staff and our exceptional teachers for our well-deserved academic celebration this year.
Every Day Counts
Another great improvement for our school which also feeds well into our increased academic achievement this year is our Attendance data. This year we are tracking well with students coming to school on time every day. This snip from the Queensland DET shows how increasing and maintaining regular school attendance helps with increased academic outcomes.
I’m glad to be back at school after such a long time away and pleased to return to our community of learning. Enjoy your weekend everyone!
Jo