The Greater Essex County School Board is incredibly pleased with the results of the 2023-24 EQAO scores.
The results of the scores were released during the Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday night.
Grade 3 and Grade 6 students do EQAO that involves reading, writing, and math. Grade 9 students take a math only EQAO test, and Grade 10 students take the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) which is reading and writing only.
Overall, the board has highlighted trends of the scores over the last three years starting in 2021 when they started administering the EQAO assessment again after a two year pause from 2019 to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some of the trends noticed over the three years included increases across all spectrums for the Grade 3 test scores including a seven per cent increase in both writing and math, a 10 per cent increase in math scores for Grade 6 students, and an increase of three per cent in OSSLT scores for Grade 10 students.
Raquel Roberts, Superintendent of Education with the GECDSB, says they've seen a lot of improvements.
"In Grade 3 over the past three years we've seen reading increase by three per cent, Grade 3 writing has increased by seven per cent, and Grade 3 math has also increased by seven per cent."
She says they've seen increases in those who pass the OSSLT on the first try,
"We are very proud that 80 per cent of our first-time eligible GECDSB who wrote the Literacy Test were successful on their first attempt, and that was an increase of one per cent. And again, to highlight that the trend over the past three years in the OSSLT results has also increased three per cent, so we have a lot to celebrate."
She says the board is just below the provincial average in scores in most cases.
"We were above the provincial average in Grade 6 math by two per cent. And one of our board goals in 2023-24 was to increase our Grade 6 math from 49 per cent to 51 per cent, so we're proud that we were successful in that area."
Roberts adds that these improvements mainly stem from the work around the Math Achievement Action Plan which was put forward by the Ministry of Education in 2023 to focus on curriculum and math content training.
She adds that their focus remains on ensuring early intervention strategies are in place for students so they can be successful in these tests.