“We have really high expectations of our kids, and we match it with equally high levels of support.”
Every year, the school holds four parent-teacher interviews and provides four school reports – double that of most schools.
It’s a practice that ensures every student stays on track. If a student hasn’t made a term’s worth of progress when measured against the curriculum, there is swift intervention, be it from speech pathologists, additional classes or a focus on attendance.
Frequent updates also bring Albanvale parents, most of whom did not finish school, on board. Uzunovski said school families are determined that their children get all the educational opportunities they can.
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“The parents are very engaged. They want their children to thrive in school and thrive in life,” Uzunovski said.
Year 7 students at Box Hill High School – where two-thirds of students have a language background other than English – have also performed above peers from similar backgrounds across all categories.
But it is the uplift in students’ writing in the past three years among year 9 students that principal Kellie Ind is most proud of.
In 2023, the school’s NAPLAN results highlighted writing as an area for improvement.
Teachers gained more skills and worked together to target writing across all subjects, believing clear writing and clear thinking are two sides of the same coin. Students, meanwhile, learnt to plan what they wanted to say, construct more complex sentences, build their vocabulary and edit their work.
Box Hill High School principal Kellie Ind with students Diya Aneesh, 14 (left), and Evie Kusserow, 15.Credit: Alex Coppel
“I think students often would just write to get things done, and so we made it clear by doing lots of low-stakes writing, that writing was to show how well you understood something, or to get across a point of view,” Ind said.
“We have lots of challenges in our modern world around young people communicating on social media or text messages. Communicating well clarifies their thinking and helps them remember things more.”
The impact can be seen across almost all subjects, Ind said, from concise bullet points in science to layered arguments in humanities.
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Year 9 student Diya Aneesh said she’d learnt how to structure a paragraph and relate back to the prompt in an essay.
“Through the writing process my vocabulary has improved,” she said. “If I’m talking to a doctor I know what to say, and how to properly explain how I’m feeling, or can join in during class when we’re talking about a pretty big question.”
Albanvale Primary and Box Hill High are among 17 metropolitan government schools to make ACARA’s list of star performers.
The list, which is not ranked for performance, includes two independent schools and one Catholic school.
The results provide schools with a benchmark for assessing their students’ performance over time and against national standards.
NAPLAN results for 2025 will be published on the My School website on Wednesday, along with information on each school’s profile, population and attendance levels.
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