Darwin

Haileybury Rendall School’s academic excellence good news story

Haileybury Rendall School has continued its recent record of students achieving outstanding academic excellence with another set of strong NAPLAN results for 2024.

Whilst just 6.8% of Northern Territory students achieved the top NAPLAN band of ‘Exceeding’ the percentage of Haileybury Rendall Primary School students in this top category was 34.2%, which was also above the national average for all schools in Australia.

NAPLAN results in Year 7 saw 83% of HRS students achieve scores for numeracy and literacy in the top two bands of ‘Exceeding’ and ‘Strong.’

Haileybury Rendall School is proud to be a significant part of Closing the Gap for First Nations students and almost 15% of students at the School identify as Indigenous. A dedicated bridging program for remote and very remote students from Years 7–9, known as the Ochre program, is a centrepiece of education at HRS. Incredibly, the 2024 NAPLAN results showed that very remote Indigenous students are an average of 58 points ahead of the NT averages at Year 7. This represents a two  to three year advantage. At Year 9, the average very remote student scores were 78 points ahead, which is a three to four year advantage.

Haileybury Rendall School puts these amazing results down to several factors. Firstly, our teachers are experts in delivering Explicit Instruction. This pedagogy is research-based and proven time and time again as the best way to develop the essential fundamentals of numeracy and literacy learning. Now mandated as the best way to teach across most of Australia, our students are reaping the rewards of Haileybury’s experience in this field. Then we add to this the comprehensive and ongoing professional development of our staff combined with their passion and enthusiasm. We take pride in our learning and classroom culture where high expectations and positive behaviours are expected and enjoyed. Add to that great parent support and wonderful students and you see the key ingredients to our success.

Academic success at Haileybury Rendall School looks multi-faceted and it was no accident that recently three student teams from Years 5 to 9 qualified for the international finals in Tournament of the Minds (TOM), to be held in Sydney in October. TOM is an academic competition focusing on collaborative problem-solving and critical thinking. It is open to both primary and secondary students in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and a number of other locations in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Students work in a team of seven to create a dramatic performance outlining their solution to an open-ended long-term challenge in one of four disciplines: STEM, Language Literature, The Arts and Social Science. Students also participate in a shorter, unseen spontaneous challenge on the day of the tournament. Our teams were made up of students who volunteered and they spent tens of hours in their own time and at weekends preparing for the NT competition.

Our Junior School students also encouraged our staff to enrol them in the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee Challenge for 2024. Over 70,000 students from across Australia were involved and we were thrilled when HRS students won five of the top six places in the Northern Territory for students from Years 3–6.