Since 2008, Stuartholme School has ranked among the top five girls’ schools in Queensland, and in 2016 was ranked the top Catholic Girls’ School in Queensland.
Stuarthome’s Deputy Principal Learning, Ken Turnbull believes the academic success of the Class of 2016 is a product of how we teach at Stuartholme.
Ten years ago Stuartholme engaged Dr Judy Smeed from Queensland University of Technology to review the academic programs and curriculum structure to ensure every girl could achieve personal successes and gain entry into tertiary courses offered by Universities.
As a result of that work Stuartholme put in place:
- academic programs and mentoring to ensure students are prepared,
- thinking and procedural skills required for high stakes testing and internal assessments, such as the Queensland Core Skills (QCS) Test,
- regular meetings with Dr Smeed and the teaching staff to review student performance on NAPLAN and QCS testing as well as focussing on the ‘common curriculum elements’ (CCEs) which underpin the QCS test.
The outcomes
Learnings from these meetings and the advice provided by Dr Smeed continued to drive the Senior school preparation and teaching and learning framework which draws on Blooms Taxonomy and more recently Marzano and Hattie’s work on excellence in teaching for improved student outcomes.
Although academic success is important, it will never be at the detriment of the student, so any changes made, were done in combination with Stuartholme’s Student Wellbeing Program.
Over the past decade Stuartholme has maintained a position among the secondary schooling community which recognises and acknowledges our continued success and performance as a highly regarded girls school equal to the best in the state.
We are very proud of the work our teachers have done, but we can’t take away from the hard work of our 2016 Seniors, who should all be very proud of their achievements.
