Northern suburbs schools in top student ATAR rankings

SCHOOLS in the City of Stirling are among WA’s best academically, according to student performance rankings.

Carmel School in Dianella (second), St Mary’s Anglican Girls’ School in Karrinyup (third) and Hale School in Wembley Downs (ninth) were in the top 10 of schools based on the highest median Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) achieved by Year 12 students in 2018.

All schools improved on their 2017 rankings, where Carmel School was 10th, St Mary’s fifth and Hale 12th.

Churchlands Senior High School ranked seventh for public schools, while Carine Senior High School was 12th of the 15 State schools listed in the top 50.

Other northern suburbs public schools that performed well included Shenton College (12th overall), Greenwood College and Woodvale Secondary College.

Tuart Hill-based Servite College finished 21st in the rankings, ahead of Newman College in Churchlands at 34, with both previously absent from the 2017 list.

Sixteen WA schools had 100 per cent of students achieve the WA Certificate of Education (WACE), including Newman and St Mary’s.

Hale and Churchlands were in the top 50 schools, with just two and seven students respectively not achieving the WACE.

Despite releasing the statistics, the School Curriculum and Standards Authority warned parents there were many other factors involved in choosing a school.

“It should be noted that researchers into school effectiveness agree that schools account for only about nine per cent of the variance between students,” a statement on its website said.

“Students’ personal backgrounds account for most of the variance in academic performance.”