BARRHEAD/WESTLOCK — In the annual Provincial Achievement Tests (PATs) written by all Grade 6 and 9 students in Alberta, Pembina Hills students scored at least four per cent lower than the provincial average in five of the subjects examined by the tests, were on par with the province in five other subjects and exceeded the rest of Alberta by more than four per cent in only two subjects.
Those were some of the highlights from the 2022-2023 PAT results report presented to Pembina Hills trustees at their Nov. 22 meeting.
Raime Drake, director of education services, stated in her report that PATs reflect the essential knowledge, understanding, and skills and procedures that Alberta students are expected to achieve, regardless of school choice or location.
They also assist school authorities and the province in monitoring and improving student learning.
It should be noted that the PAT results are presented in two different formats: cohort and writer results.
Cohort results refer to the collective results of all students enrolled in a particular grade, with students who did not write a particular test being scored as zero, while writer results only represent those students who actually wrote the tests.
Drake said Pembina Hills traditionally had very high participation rates prior to the COVID pandemic.
“We saw a big decline last year in our participation rates, (but) I’m happy to report that we are seeing big increases again as we return to more normal,” she said.
That said, Drake indicated there were still a number of students who did not write the PATs due to illness or mental health concerns. As well, Vista Virtual School students have lower rates of participation due to distance from writing centres, schedules and various other reasons.
At the Grade 6 level, Pembina Hills students had their best results in English Language Arts 6, where 90.6 per cent of writers achieved an acceptable standard and 11.6 per cent achieved a standard of excellence (which is generally over 80 per cent).
Provincially, 90.4 per cent of writers achieved an acceptable standard and 21.9 per cent achieved a standard of excellence. With that in mind, Drake noted they would really like to bring up the number of students reaching that high standard.
Pembina Hills students fared less well in Mathematics 6, where 71.6 per cent of writers achieved an acceptable standard and 10.5 reached a standard of excellence. Provincially, 76.9 per cent of writers achieved an acceptable standard, while 18.8 per cent achieved a standard of excellence.
Drake said that a new Grade 6 math curriculum was rolled out in 2022-2023 which affected the results locally and provincially.
Local students also did not fare well in terms of Science 6, where only 72.9 per cent of writers achieved an acceptable standard and 15.1 per cent achieved a standard of excellence.
Comparatively, 79.9 per cent of writers achieved an acceptable standard province-wide, while 27 per cent achieved a standard of excellence.
Students in Pembina Hills and the province both struggled in Social Studies 6. In Pembina Hills, 70.6 per cent achieved an acceptable standard and 12.1 per cent achieved a standard of excellence; provincially, 79.1 per cent of writers achieved an acceptable standard while 22.1 per cent achieved a standard of excellence.
Moving to the Grade 9 level, Drake pointed out that the participation rate on the English Language Arts 9 exam jumped from 67.6 per cent in 2021-2022 to 88.6 per cent in 2022-2023. “It’s nice to see that really taking a jump,” she added.
Results-wise, 84.3 per cent of writers in Pembina Hills achieved an acceptable standard on the ELA 9 exam, while only 10.1 per cent reached a standard of excellence. Provincially, 85.1 per cent achieved an acceptable standard, while 15.9 per cent of writers reached a standard of excellence.
Mathematics 9 was a sore point, as only 58.5 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieved an acceptable standard and only 10.7 per cent reached a standard of excellence.
Comparatively, 64 per cent of writers province-wide achieved the standard of excellence and 15.6 reached that standard of excellence.
Even with marks being low across Alberta, Drake acknowledged that they have some work to do in this area.
Science 9 was a bit better, with 74.5 per cent of writers in Pembina Hills achieving an acceptable standard and 9.9 per cent achieving a standard of excellence. Provincially, 78.5 per cent had results matching that acceptable standard, but a whopping 24.1 per cent reached the standard of excellence.
Pembina Hills writers also fared less well in Social Studies 9, as 63.5 per cent achieved the standard of excellence compared to the province’s rate of 69 per cent. In terms of the standard of excellence, 10.2 per cent of local writers were able to meet that goalpost, while 19 per cent of provincial writers did so.
The two subjects where Pembina Hills scored better than the rest of Alberta were in Knowledge and Employabilities (K&E) Math and Science 9.
In K&E Science, 76.2 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieved an acceptable standard compared to 68.4 per cent of writers provincially. As well, 28.6 per cent of local writers achieved the standard of excellence compared to 14.3 per cent provincially.
In K&E Math 9, 75 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieved an acceptable standard compared to 65 per cent provincially.
As well, 18.8 per cent of local writers reached the standard of excellence compared to 14.1 per cent provincially.
Pembina Hills students were also on par with the province in K&E English Language Arts 9, with 72.2 per cent of local writers reaching the acceptable standard compared to 71.2 per cent provincially. A total of 22.9 per cent of local writers in K&E ELA 9 achieved a standard of excellence, while eight per cent of writers provincially did the same.
Likewise, in K&E Social Studies 9, 65 per cent of local writers achieved an acceptable standard, while 62.1 per cent of writers provincially reached that standard.
Notably, 30 per cent of local writers in K&E Social Studies 9 reached a standard of excellence, while 13.3 per cent provincially achieved a standard of excellence.
