Parents will get unique access to data which tracks the progress of students in Australian schools with the launch of the new-look My School website.
The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the Minister for School Education, Peter Garrett, today previewed the site which will be publicly available with new data next month.
For the first time, My School will outline the progress students have made in literacy and numeracy since the 2008 National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy tests.
This will provide unprecedented insight for parents and carers on the impact of teaching and learning across Australia's schools.
The enhanced version of My School will also include financial information on schools.
It will be the first time information on the resources available to schools will be publically available.
With this year's updated and new data, My School becomes a living site, with schools' progress tracked year by year for those students who have remained at a school from 2008 to 2010.
My School has undergone a number of important changes since its first release in January 2010, reflecting valuable feedback and input from parents, teachers and unions.
The enhancements build on the highly successful existing My School website for parents. There have been more than 4.1 million visits to My School since it was launched.
The improvements to My School reflect the Gillard Government's ongoing commitment to continual improvement and transparency in school education.
Anyone will be able to follow a cohort of students as they move through school levels to see what progress they have made over the last two years.
The 2010 National NAPLAN Summary Report shows that from 2008 to 2010, there has been significant improvement at the national level in Year 3 reading, writing, grammar and punctuation, Year 5 numeracy and Year 7 reading.
Nationally, over 90 per cent of students are at or above the national minimum standard in almost all domains and year levels. The exceptions are Year 9 Writing at 87.2 per cent and Year 9 Spelling at 89.6 per cent.
The new My School site will provide further information on these national figures at the school level. This will help to better identify what is working and help inform local discussions about how school performance can be improved.
The key additions to the My School website are:- data about growth in student achievement- data about school finances- a more accurate method of calculating the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA)- new graphical methods of displaying NAPLAN data- security features to ensure that data is used appropriately
The Government acknowledges the significant input from the My School Working Party which included representatives of parents, teachers, principals, academics and education unions. Their suggestions along with those of state and territory education ministers have strongly influenced the form of the new site.
Information available on the website from today includes a preview of the new site and a fact sheet outlining the new features of the site.
The enhanced site will go live in December. For more information, please visit www.myschool.edu.au
Schools that have questions about the site, are encouraged to email info@myschool.edu.au