London’s grade 9 students underperformed against the provincial average on this year’s Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) test.
Only 43 per cent of grade 9 students in the London District Catholic School Board (LDCSB) reached the provincial standard this year. Students in the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB) achieved similar results with 45 per cent meeting the target.
The provincial average had 52 per cent of students reach the goal set by the province. Notably 7 per cent above the TVDSB and 9 per cent above the LDCSB.
The Superintendent of education with responsibility for curriculum for the LDCSB, Mark Santandrea, was not worried by the low scores on account of the adjustments staff and students have had to make recently.
“In 2021 we started with the de-streamed math course which was a completely new math curriculum”
This new curriculum was implemented province wide, where grade 9 EQAO scores were also significantly under results from other grades in other subjects.
For comparison the grades 3 and 6 students achieved results from 65 to 85 per cent reaching the standard in reading and writing. Math however remained lower with only 47 per cent of grade 6’s and 59 per cent of grade 3’s meeting the mark.
Santandrea says that grades 1 to 8 also received a new curriculum in 2020 which is part of a greater refocusing on math across the province.
“Math’s been an area (that) we’ve been working on as a system and as a province for a long time, like years and years and years. So really what we’re seeing here is just a renewed effort.”
He says the Catholic School board has a plan that’s already been put into place to bring students up to speed.
“We’ve produced some resources as a system to support teachers specific to the new curriculum, both in grades 9 and 1 to 8, we’re providing additional professional learning opportunities for our principals and for our teachers (and) we’ve dedicated professional development days to mathematics learning for our teachers.”
Santandrea recognizes that the EQAO test results are a helpful tool as a ‘snapshot’ of where students are, but he says it’s one among many.
“It’s really about improving and supporting students in that day-to-day versus looking at snapshot to snapshot.”
The TVDSB was contacted but refused an interview on this topic. Their ‘strategic plan’ can be found here.
