Gowrie Primary School principal Gareth Richards didn't just want to bring a tired wall back to life when he commissioned local street artist Geoff Filmer to paint a mural - he wanted it to illustrate the philosophy of his school.
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The splashes of blue signify inclusiveness, while the plane jetting upwards shows the positive trajectory of his students. Everyone counts at Gowrie Primary School, and it's this attitude that Mr Richards credits for the school's NAPLAN results.
Gowrie Primary School has been recognised by the Australian Curriculum, Reporting and Assessment Authority as making positive gains for its students as they progress from years three to five in reading and numeracy.
"The philosophy that drives me is around student engagement and relationships," Mr Richards said.
"If we don't have the engagement and relationships, the learning in the classroom doesn't necessarily take hold as quickly as you might like. My staff here would embody that."
Mr Richards joined the Tuggeranong school in 2015, the same year it went through its validation. Following that process teachers, students and their families worked together to create a five-year plan to push the school forward.
Part of that process was looking at students' assessment data and comparing it to the Tuggeranong and territory averages.
"That's when we started to pick up there's actually some holes here periodically for some children so [we looked at] how do we plug those gaps, so using the data to inform the teaching and learning cycle of where do we go next in the pathway forward for these children," Mr Richards said.
Innovations to address gaps included the creation of a STEM centre and an open learning program for year five and six students, who use Chromebooks to complete projects.
Every student at the school now has a pathway set out with a beginning, middle and end, and when their journey stalls, teachers work to help them progress.
Parental engagement has also been key and the community has responded with enthusiasm. A reading workshop for parents of kindergarten to grade two students held last week attracted up to 90 people.
Mr Richards said the latest NAPLAN results show the school's approach is the right one.
"Some of our data sets are starting to show that we're not only just closing the gap, but we are bridging and going past some of those benchmarks as well for those students, so that's telling me something's working," he said.
ACT school NAPLAN results for 2016 can now be accessed on the My School website.
