Canberra Girls Grammar School has been identified as a high achieving school which also adds value to its high-achieving students in reading.
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While the elite girls school is used to coming in the top clutch of schools each year, based on raw NAPLAN scores, it has also been identified by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority to deliver significant improvements to its reading results between Years 7 and 9.
It is more difficult for a high-achieving school to improve significantly over time than a low-achieving one, something of which principal Anne Coutts is acutely aware.
"Although we are not a selective school - we take students in strict date order of their registration with us - we do know that our students have many advantages," Ms Coutts said.
"Among the many advantages our students have is interest in and support for their learning at home. Often we are trying to help relatively high achievers to move to higher order thinking," she said.
This included being creative and innovate rather than just remembering facts and to create new generations of "independent thinkers".
"Any school can enable high-achieving students to coast comfortably, we don't want that to happen. We aim to challenge our students to move outside their comfort zone and discover their passions," Ms Coutts said.
While Canberra Girls Grammar had below average gains in some of the literacy and numeracy domains by Year 5, its performance was relatively strong across a number of domains by Year 9.
Similarly, Canberra Grammar, achieved above average gains in three of the five literacy domains by Year 9 as well as some of the top raw scores.
Ms Coutts said teachers encouraged each individual student to make progress "whatever that means for them".
"We have concentrated for the last few years in using the data rich environment of our school to inform our teaching. We analyse data about each students progress to help us know how best to support their learning. We aim to engage their interest and natural curiosity to enjoy their learning and find it fun. We know that each child will have a preferred way to learn and we aim to differentiate in the classroom so that each student can learn to have confidence in their abilities."
Ms Coutts said the selection by ACARA has a high improvement school was particularly pleasing "because it is a true measure of the difference a school has made to its students".
