Year 12 Results & Value Adding

The Year 12 exam results are not the be all and end all of education, there are other alternatives - see VET. Also,  there are issues with using Exams to rank students - see below. Never the less, Year 12 results (STUDY SCORES) can be found on web sites like- https://bettereducation.com.au/results/vce.aspx which can be used to compare or look at a particular School's results.

Year 12 students in Victoria will get, for each subject, a final score out of 50 called the STUDY SCORE. It is important to understand that this is a RANKING. For example, if we have 100 students in a particular subject, their exam results will be used to rank the students from 1st to 100th. Students who are at the 53rd rank will get a score of 30/50. So a significant number of students (47%) will fall below this - click here for more details.

This rank is also used to determine if the teacher has added value - see VALUE ADDING below.

Example of a Y12 Comparison table.

The following video will show you how to create a comparison table for Yr12 results.

VALUE ADDING - a focus on teaching

In Victoria, all Students who enrol in a Year 12 subject, sit a general exam in JUNE called the GAT (General Achievement Test). The GAT is used as a predictor of Year 12 exam results. If a student is sick during the end of year exams, their GAT result can be used. Also, the students' end of year exam results is matched against the GAT prediction. If the student achieved better than the GAT prediction, then the School and teacher are considered to be VALUE ADDING.

Each Year 12 teacher can access their class data, and use this data, with their superiors, to improve their teaching the following year.

The School gets an overall value for each subject, so whilst this is not publicly available, you could ask for it.

Watch the video below for an example:

Issues with using Exams to rank students:

Many people say that the issue with the Study Score is that 47% of Students fall below a score of 30/50. This is a large number! The ranking is primarily used for University entry and many students have no intention of going to Uni. So we are demoralizing and stressing  too many students unnecessarily.

The stress that this competition causes is enormous and most Schools can attest to the increase in anxiety type issues with students as they progress to Year 12.

This is in STARK CONTRAST to the skill based assessment used in VET subjects - see VET.

Also, if this is not too complicated already; Universities standardize this Study Score to give a SCALED SCORE. They do this to enable fair comparisons between subjects - for an explanation of this process click HERE. For example, a Study Score of 29/50 in Specialist Maths was scaled up to 42/50 for Universities entry.