07 April 2022
At St Peter’s College, we employ an array of different assessment strategies and techniques to understand students’ needs and cater to their next steps in learning; this is part of the reason that our students exhibit significant academic progress and performance.
As our athletic students aim to perform well at SAPSASA or State Championships, and our musical maestros focus on finesse in Eisteddfod and ABODA, International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS) allows our students demonstrating academic excellence to be recognised.
The ICAS competition assesses students on their ability to apply classroom learning to new contexts. Furthermore, students need to demonstrate the higher‐order skills that they are developing at school and are essential for success in the modern world: critical thinking and problem solving.
Students with the top score in each year level, in each competition, are awarded an ICAS medal and a medal winner’s certificate. I am pleased to announce that even though the Junior School enters only two of the six competitions – English and Maths – we have gained enough medals to be ranked the second highest performing school in South Australia.
This is an outstanding achievement due to the lack of competitions we enter. Furthermore, only our Junior School enters ICAS and we have outperformed all other Independent Schools, even though many of those enter all tests at many year groups. With such a small representation in the competitions, it is an exceptional outcome that the Junior School is ranked as such a high-performing school.
I wish to send a huge congratulations to all the teachers, parents and – most importantly – students who have been involved in this amazing academic achievement. It is testament to our partnership in learning that we can achieve such an accolade!
Jon Gelsthorpe
Deputy Head of Junior School – Teaching and Learning