The Department of Education has announced new targets for NSW public schools to ensure that improving student outcomes sits at the heart of the education system.
The Department said its new School Success Model replaced the Local Schools, Local Decisions policy and would use targets to ensure shared responsibility for student success.
Minister for Education, Sarah Mitchell said the Model provided the transparency and support mechanisms for schools to successfully manage their funding and make decisions to benefit students.
“Schools will be given individual targets benchmarked against similar schools for HSC, student growth, phonics, attendance, NAPLAN, wellbeing, Aboriginal education, and pathways,” Ms Mitchell said.
“Schools that exceed their targets will provide a database of best practice – with the Department of Education to explore whether their teaching methods can be scaled across NSW,” she said.
“Schools that fail to meet their targets will trigger intervention – with the department providing additional support.”
Ms Mitchell said intervention would range from looking at whether teaching practices and learning programs reflected evidence-based best practice, to exploring whether a school’s unspent additional funding could be better used on providing extra staff in an area of educational need.
“Schools are receiving record funding, and many have used this funding to build truly incredible places to learn,” the Minister said.
“These are the schools the system can learn from, these are the schools whose teaching practices can be scaled across similar schools who are not meeting their targets,” she said.
Ms Mitchell said individual school targets would be in place from 2022.
“While the department will be held accountable for ensuring that schools across NSW meet their targets, they will also have their own targets based around reducing the administrative burden for principals and teachers,” she said.
