We congratulate ELTHAM College of Education’s Senior School students who completed their Victorian Certificate of Education in 2008. 307 Senior Years students completed one or more VCE unit 3/4 subjects this year.

The final VCE results of the 2008 Year 12 graduates were gained from their Unit 3/4 studies across Years 11 and 12, an indication of the breadth of opportunity provided by ELTHAM’s Senior Years VCE program. ELTHAM also offers its Year 11 students the opportunity to attempt one or more VCE Unit 3/4 subjects – a very broad range of subject offerings.

At ELTHAM we believe in educating our students towards the attitudes and skills needed to make them viable contributors to a sustainable future – economically, environmentally, politically and ethically – as self managing young adults with a genuine sense of ownership and control of their own destiny and of the global future. Never has this been more important than at this stage of our history.

ELTHAM’s broad VCE program, along with the LifeWork program that underpins it, encourages this level of self management and degree of critical thinking.  Our young people have completed school with enormous opportunity in front of them and strong credentials to take with them into their next stage of learning.We are proud of them as they confidently chart the course for their immediate future.

VCE completion
ELTHAM students are encouraged to choose broadly, in an endeavour to appreciate some of the benefits and hardships that come with experiencing genuine, true choice. ELTHAM students are able to access over 70 studies through which to complete their VCE and their vocational certificates.  This wide range of studies provides our students with one of the broadest VCE curriculums in the state from which to select an appropriate course, whether that is to pursue University study, VET, employment or other post school life choices.

ELTHAM’s mission is to release and enhance the talents of each individual student, and we actively practice this aim. Broadly speaking, our graduates have pursued quite distinct, individual paths to their own immediate success goal. To generalise however, the largest single cohort of student graduates is that group who have fully embraced the converged curriculum offered and promoted by the Senior School over recent years.

It is these students that have planned a three year curriculum in Senior School, grounding their studies and choices in their first year (Year 10) and refining their selections in their final senior Years 11 and 12. This large group of students has mixed “traditional” course selections with great success, planning courses to include a mix of tertiary focussed subjects, vocationally oriented subjects and other curricular and cocurricular choices to provide them with important life balance and useful experience, and, at this seemingly early stage, real life and career choices. Examples abound in this group, evidenced strongly in the excellent results achieved in subjects as diverse as Economics, Geography, Health and Human Development, Mathematics, Media, Literature, Psychology and Studio Arts – in each of these studies our students fared well above, often twice state average in terms of top study scores. But, more importantly, the students chose eclectically across this subject range, not limiting themselves to traditional single discipline offerings.

These are students with drive, whose goals include making the world more sustainable. These have been our leaders in the Year 12 class, formally and by their example, and we congratulate them on achieving at or above their aspirations.

Another very talented and indeed inspirational group has comprised those students whose overriding aim has been to produce, to manufacture, to perform, to exhibit, to display their skills and talents to the public benefit.

VCE completion in 2008 included 124 students completing a VET Certificate II, 47 completing a Certificate III and 33 a Certificate IV. These students developed their skills in Hospitality (front of house and commercial cookery), multimedia and screen, community recreation and IT, equine skills, music industry, and more. Add to these the amazing art and design work completed in Theatre, Media, Music Performance, VCD and Studio Arts and we can be but humbled that not only are these students displaying their talents in these areas but, unlike many schools, they are actually gaining certification for their work ambitions – along with essential industry experience and important credentials towards their post secondary courses that, in most cases, count instead of, or in addition to, the traditional ENTER score.

The last subset of our graduates is indeed a large and highly valued one. This is the 'fiercely academic' cohort, those whose primary aspiration is to gain entry to highly selective and prestigious University courses. Ironically, it is this group by which all Victorian VCE graduates seem to be judged when results are reported. At ELTHAM we too value the importance of this group achieving the incredibly high study scores and 80+ ENTERs that these courses require for entry, and we provide not just the selection information but the quality teaching and learning experiences that foster and reward academic excellence of this nature. In that light we can proudly report that, of the students who presented for an ENTER in 2008, 32 gained 90+ ENTERs, placing them in the top 10% of the State. A further 34 students gained ENTERs above 80.

Congratulations to Lachlan Sadler, Daniel Norrie, Annie Yu and Hubert Wu who each gained ENTERs above 99, placing them in the top 1% of the State, with Lachlan achieving 99.75. Tim Hall also completed Enhancement Studies at University level in History, gaining tertiary experience and bonus towards his ENTER of 98.90.

The ENTER score is the system devised mathematically to give universities an expedient system for selecting their students. Students are ranked up to 99.95. ENTERs are calculated by the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC) to provide a means of selection for tertiary institutions, a sample of less than 50% of school leavers. They are nevertheless considered important for those of our own students who have university courses as their primary aim.

There will be students who achieved an ENTER of 98 and wanted 99, some who received 75 and wanted 80 and some who received 50 and needed 55. On the other hand, some will have received ENTERs well above what they needed. Each needs to take the number received and create some perspective with it and look for their opportunities. We believe that they have the maturity, emotional intelligence and self-management to create their success.

High Study Scores
A score of 40+ places a student in the top 7.5% of the state cohort in that subject. Overall there were 125 study scores above 40, across our Year 11 and 12 students who complete Unit 3/4 VCE subjects this year, with the graduating class gaining a total of 123 study scores above 40 during their combined VCE years 2007-8.

The percentage who achieved 40+ study scores was 13%, close to double state average.  We do need to remember that we encourage most of our Year 11 also to do at least one Unit 3/4 as an experience of the VCE and enable all students to follow their passion rather than selecting their studies based on what we believe they will be better at.  Universities accept lots of people who are offered entry based on school selected studies rather than what students really feel passionate about.  This helps account for the large attrition rates from first year courses.

Congratulations to the five students who gained study scores of 50, the maximum score awarded in any subject. They were Alastair Anderson (Physical Education), Aidan McDonald (VET Music Industry), Kelsie Nabben (Hospitality), Lachlan Sadler (Legal Studies) and Hubert Wu (Business Management).

The median Study Score in 2008 was 31, slightly down but indicative of the open opportunities that we provide to Year 11 to pursue passion and interest and to explore and make mistakes.

A number of students elected to not have their results published.This is their right.Early each year the VCAA asks students to indicate whether they will give permission for their name and study score above 40 to be published.This is part of the problem with public report cards.They are never quite accurate.

Year 11 students experiencing Unit 3/4 studies
131 students from the total Year 11 cohort studied at least one Unit 3/4 subject this year. This provided them with a wide choice of options and 44 achieved at least one Study Score of 40+.  

Reflecting on the VCE results
Senior schooling should be about senior schooling, developing those attributes, skills and knowledge needed to move into a post-school world with comfort and the capability for ownership and self-management. Universities and TAFE’s have a variety of instruments at their disposal to determine whether they will accept a student or not. However, the cheapest and quickest is through the VCE.

Sadly, VCE is now seen as an instrument of ENTER scores and fundamentally that is what people celebrate or decry. Just as someone should be celebrating the finish of school and a new stage in life, an ENTER score can take away that celebration. A lower than needed or expected ENTER score is not the end of the world, just a call for reflecting on a new pathway. That universities and TAFE selection continue to dictate what senior schooling is about and create a stress and pressure is both unreasonable and unnecessary.

It is very difficult to make meaningful comparisons between ELTHAM and other schools in terms of VCE results.  ELTHAM is a non selective school that aims to release and enhance the talents of each of its students, individually but within a team environment. We believe we succeed in this, through broad curriculum opportunities that enable individually planned student programs, regardless of background and fields of interest.

ELTHAM also provides the opportunity for all Year 11 students to ‘have a go’ and experience the VCE.  This stands them in good stead for the next year, but makes comparisons such as are reported in the media rather useless because we are not comparing Year 12 academic against Year 12 academic.  In addition, we believe that ELTHAM student record in tertiary entrance and tertiary retention is at a high level of excellence as demonstrated by the 15 month graduate surveys we have conducted since the 2002 Year 12.  I share this with families each year and the results indicate that ELTHAM students stick with their post-school destinations, feel in control of their careers and believe in their capacity and success as self-directed learners.

ELTHAM works with its students to empower them to be confident, collaborative managers of their own living, learning and working. Our team of LifeWork Managers and Learning Advisers ensures that each student has the opportunity to identify their VCE goals and work towards fulfilling their aspirations.

We take pride in having assisted the students of 2008 to reach their potential through individual pathways to success. This has resulted in not just a good set of results but moreover a portfolio of skills, experiences, achievements and attitudes that will influence their choice of future directions far more profoundly than their ENTER score. We therefore congratulate our Senior Years students on gaining another set of good results, and wish them continued success and enjoyment in pursuing their life pathways.

With best wishes,

Dr David Warner
Principal