Used to describe the performance level of a cohort in a year level. The lowest and highest bands vary from year level to year level. In Year 3 band 1 is the lowest while band 6 is the highest. For Year 5, bands 3 to 8 are reported; for Year 7, bands 4 to 9; for Year 9, bands 5 to 10.

The central tendency of a data set refers to a measure of the "middle" or "expected" value of the data set. An average is a single value that is meant to typify a list of values.

Grouping used to measure student performance in NAPLAN tests. A band is used for comparative purposes and is not a specific point. Rather, it has a high and low range that creates the grouping called a band.

For this website, ‘close to average’ is a value the effects methods conventions are applied to schools in that calendar year for that domain. This measure is used to indicate performance similar to the comparative measure.

A label applied to a specific skill set or area of study pertaining to NAPLAN. Each NAPLAN domain represents a separate area of reporting. There are five domains in NAPLAN:Reading, Writing, Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation, and Numeracy.

A student enrolment of a person who prior to the census date is formally registered with a school and active in a course of study other than pre-school or TAFE courses.

A student is not required to sit a test for a legitimate reason. Consequently, exempt students are considered not to have met the national minimum standard for that year level.

This is a measure of the total level of teaching staff used. The FTE of a full-time teaching staff member (i.e. employed full-time and engaged solely on activities which fall within the scope of this collection) is equal to 1.0.
The calculation of FTE for part-time teaching staff is as follows:

•	The FTE of part-time teaching staff performing some activities which fall outside the scope of this collection (e.g. preschool or TAFE) is calculated on the basis of the proportion of time spent on in-scope activities compared with that spent by a full-time teaching staff member solely occupied by in-scope activities.
•	The FTE of part-time teaching staff performing activities which fall solely within the scope of this collection is calculated on the basis of time worked compared with that worked by full-time teaching staff performing similar duties.

Some States and Territories are not able to calculate FTE on a time-spent basis for all teaching staff functions but use wages paid as a fraction of full-time rate, or a resource allocation based formula. Some also use a pro rata formula based on student or teacher numbers to estimate aggregate FTE for some categories of teaching staff.

Number of different people who attend a school or class or event. A whole number used to represent magnitude.

See the About ICSEA Fact Sheet and the ICSEA Technical Paper at www.myschool.edu.au

The Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) is a special measure that enables meaningful and fair comparisons to be made across schools. The variables that make up ICSEA include socio-economic characteristics of the small areas where students live (in this case an ABS census collection district), as well as whether a school is in a regional or remote area, and the proportion of Indigenous students enrolled at the school. It has been developed specifically for the My School website for the purpose of identifying schools serving similar student populations. The average ICSEA value is 1000. Most schools have an ICSEA score between 900 and 1100. ICSEA should be interpreted with the assistance of the About ICSEA Fact Sheet, ICSEA Technical Paper and relevant FAQs.

A student is considered to be ‘Indigenous’ if he or she identifies as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin. The term 'origin' is considered to relate to people's Australian Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent and for some, but not all, their cultural identity.

A list of schools that are geographically close to the selected school. These schools are listed in ascending order based on distance. The measure is a guide to straight-line distance and the user needs to account for local landform variations.

National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy. Annual national full cohort literacy and numeracy assessments in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Test results are provided in bandsthat indicate levels of achievement. The band range, from one to ten, reflects the increasing complexity of skills and understandings demonstrated by a student and assessed by NAPLAN testing as the student progresses from Year 3 to Year 9.

The NAPLAN Scale describes the development of student achievement from Year 3 through to Year 9. It has scores that range from 0 to 1000 (called scaled scores), and these are grouped into ten bands (National Assessment Program Band 1 to Band 10).
Scaled scores • within a given domain represent the same level of achievement over time. For example, a scaled score of 540 in Reading will have the same meaning in 2010 as it had in 2008. This enables domains to be monitored over time.
Scaled scores • between domains should not be compared. With each domain representing different skills it is misleading to compare results across domains. For instance, if a student has a score of 540 in Reading and 550 in Writing, this does not necessarily indicate a higher level of ability in Writing compared to Reading, due to different skills being assessed in each domain. In addition each of the five domains was standardised independently in 2008 to have a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100.
For the National Assessment Program Bands, the higher the band, the greater the complexity of the skills assessed (so test items in Band 9 are more complex than those in Band 7).

The school age participation rate is the number of full-time school students of a particular age expressed as a proportion of the Estimated Resident Population of the same age at June (Australian Bureau of Statistics cat. no. 3201.0). It indicates the proportion of the resident population who are at school. Whereas apparent retention rates rely on students having to progress year by year through the school education system, participation rates relate to the resident population as a whole. In the ACT some rates exceed 100%. This is mainly due to the enrolment of secondary school students in ACT secondary schools who are not residents of the ACT, but live in surrounding NSW regions.

Data on post-school destinations by former students. These destinations include university, TAFE, apprenticeships, traineeships, employed, seeking work or had deferred a tertiary place.

Primary education typically commences at around age five and lasts for seven to eight years. It does not include sessional education such as pre-school education. In New South Wales, Northern Territory, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT, primary education may extend from pre-Year 1 to Year 6. In Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia it may extend from pre-Year 1 to Year 7. Queensland introduced a formal pre-Year 1 grade of school education in 2007.

Secondary education typically commences after completion of primary education, at around age 12 years, and lasts for five or six years. In New South Wales, Northern Territory, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT, secondary education may extend from Year 7 to Year 12. In Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia it may extend from Year 8 to Year 12. Part-time secondary student estimates vary considerably between States and Territories, as each education authority has different policy and organisational arrangements. The number of part-time courses available also varies considerably between States and Territories. Age level data for part-time students are not published as not all States and Territories collect the age of part-time students.

This is a measure used to compare schools with a similar student population. The measure enables the achievement of students in similar schools to be fairly and meaningfully compared.

A student is a person who prior to the census date is formally enrolled in a school and active in a course of study other than preschool or TAFE courses. Students not present at school on the NSSC census date were included if they were expected to be absent for less than four continuous weeks (excluding school vacations). Students were excluded if they had left the school or had been absent without explanation for four continuous weeks (excluding school vacations) prior to the census date.

Students who are undertaking TAFE, tertiary studies, apprenticeships, work placements, VET in schools or a combination of such pathways, in addition to 'normal' school subjects, are in the scope of the NSSC, regardless of which year of schooling these alternative pathways are undertaken. The workload of both the 'normal' school subject(s) and alternative pathways are aggregated together to determine whether a student is classified as full-time or part-time and in calculating the full-time equivalent for part-time students.

This information is collected from students' parents (or guardians) via enrolment forms and includes gender, Indigenous status, socio-economic background and language background.

Teaching staff are staff who spends the majority of their time in contact with students. Teaching staff support students either in direct classes or on an individual basis, and are responsible for imparting the school curriculum. For the purposes of this collection, teaching staff includes principals, deputy principals and senior teachers mainly involved in administration. Teacher aides and assistants, and specialist support staff are excluded.