Top marks

The Grade 10 literacy test results are in and St. Ignatius High school has earned the top mark amongst the city’s high schools.

Eighty-nine per cent of St. Ignatius students passed the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test this year, an increase of five per cent from last year.

Principal Pino Tassone said he’s proud of not only the students, but the teachers at the north-side school and they have a number of literacy programs in place to help their students succeed.

“We have different initiatives where we analyze the data and determine where the weaknesses are and we have all our teachers in every subject area focus on those areas like (inference) and understanding text,” he said.

“People seem to think it’s always in the English class. Literacy is in every class. Students have to be able to write, not only for written expression, but oral expression and they have to be able to do it to be successful,” Tassone added.

Thunder Bay’s other Catholic school St. Patrick High School saw a success rate of 79 per cent, a two per cent improvement from last year’s scores.

Lakehead Public Schools officials are pleased with the overall results of their four high schools. Hammarskjold High School scored the highest with 84 per cent of students passing the test, up five per cent from 2011.

Westgate Collegiate and Vocational Institute dropped from 91 per cent last year to 80 per cent this year. Sir Winston Churchill CVI had 77 per cent of students passing, a three per cent drop from 2011 and Superior CVI dropped from 85 per cent to 76.

The provincial average for the OSSLT is 82 per cent of students passing.

Lakehead Public Schools’ superintendent of education Sherri-Lynne Pharand said their results have been consistent over the past five years and that trend over a longer time period is what’s most important to the board.

“Annually results will vary but we are looking for consistency at a trend over time,” she said, adding that they still analyze their annual results as it gives them a snapshot of their system for the year.

The Education Quality and Accountability Office, which administers the OSSLT, gives each board a profile of their strengths and weaknesses each year.

Pharand said they take that information and use it in the classrooms over the course of the year to help students gain the skills they need.

“We really have a collaborative process in each of our schools with all of our teachers that are focused on supported students in order to ensure they can be as successful as possible,” she said.

Forty-eight per cent of students that failed the test were just one question away from a passing grade, Pharand added.

“We know our students are right there and our job is to help them to move forward in the next step in order to get the credential they need for graduation,” she said.