The Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) is the comprehensive national framework of qualifications in the school, vocational education and training (VET) and higher education sectors. Qualifications within the AQF include:

• senior secondary certificates of education issued by state and territory school curriculum, assessment and certification authorities to students meeting requirements on completion of Year 12
• VET qualifications at various certificate and diploma levels delivered by TAFE and other registered training organisations (RTOs)
• higher education diplomas and degrees provided through Australian universities and other educational institutions.

Students who did not sit a NAPLAN test because they were not present at school when the test was administered, or were unable to sit the test as a result of an accident or mishap. These students are not awarded a score for the test or tests that were missed.

Amount of capital expenditure funded by the Australian Government.

Income sourced from funding provided by the Australian Government for recurrent purposes.

The average of all scores of Australian students in each year level for each NAPLAN test domain. Also called ‘the national average’.

In statistics, ‘average’ of a set of data is a measure of the central tendency of a set. There are different statistical measurements that can be used to depict central tendency of the set. The My School website refers to an average of a set in 2 ways:

• In measuring student performance results and progress in a NAPLAN test, the arithmetic mean is used to represent student group averages. NAPLAN result averages are depicted for student year levels, whole schools, and the national student population. The mean is used because the range of individual students' results is not very large and is fairly evenly spread.
• In using the index of community socio-educational advantage (ICSEA) calculation to describe school populations on the website, the median ICSEA value for all schools is set at 1,000. This represents the 'middle ground' of educational advantage levels among Australian school students. The median is used because the ICSEA values of all schools are unevenly spread, reflecting a great diversity of student populations across Australia.

A school’s results are not reported when there are fewer than 5 students with NAPLAN results and attendance rates. This rule is applied for reasons of statistical reliability, as well as to protect the privacy of students in small schools. This also applies to socio-educational advantage (SEA) data.

Expenditure incurred by a school, or on behalf of a school by the school system (where appropriate) to buy or improve assets such as equipment and property.

A school that has classes from both primary and secondary year levels.

Results reported on the My School website are subject to different kinds of uncertainty, including variation caused by measurement and sampling error. The level of variation can be estimated and is used to create a confidence interval around the results.

The confidence interval indicates the range in which an error-free result would fall within 90% certainty. In other words, there is only a 10% chance that the error-free results would fall outside the confidence level.

Student enrolment in an Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) vocational education and training (VET) qualification or course in a reported year.

Income used to invest in capital infrastructure to improve school facilities and not available to fund recurrent expenditure. It is deducted from total gross income to arrive at net recurrent income.

One of the 5 learning areas tested in NAPLAN:

1. reading
2. writing
3. spelling
4. grammar and punctuation
5. numeracy.

All students should have an opportunity to participate in testing, but parents/carers of eligible students may choose for their child to be exempt. Eligible students include those with a language background other than English, who arrived from overseas less than a year before the NAPLAN tests, and students with significant intellectual disabilities or coexisting conditions.

Exempt students are not included when calculating the average score for a school.

Income received from parents/carers for the delivery of education services to students.

A full-time student is one who undertakes a prescribed workload for a full-time student of a particular year level. This may vary between states and territories, and between year levels.
A full-time enrolment is counted as 1.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) enrolment. A part-time enrolment is represented as a proportion of the full-time enrolment. For example, a half-time enrolment is 0.5 FTE.

The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) enrolments reported in the financial data. This number may be different to the number of FTE enrolments shown on the school profile page for some schools, where, for example, financial data include funding for preschool students who are not included in the student enrolment number.

Total level of staff resources used, where a full-time staff member is counted as 1.0, and part-time staff are represented as a proportion of the full-time load. For example, a staff member who teaches half-time is counted as 0.5 FTE. FTE figures are presented for teaching and for non-teaching staff.

Schools that are operated by a state or territory government. For the My School website, Australia's schools are divided into 2 sectors: government and non-government.

The amount of gross income received by a school, which has been spent on capital projects in the current year being reported.

Amount of gross income that has been allocated to service capital loans.

Amount of gross income received by a school, which has been allocated to a future capital project.

The index of community socio-educational advantage (ICSEA) was created by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) specifically to enable meaningful comparisons of National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) test achievement by students in schools across Australia. ICSEA should be interpreted with the assistance of our About ICSEA fact sheet (PDF 291 kb) and the Guide to understanding ICSEA values (PDF 534 kb).

Key factors in students’ family backgrounds (parents’ occupation, school education and non-school education) have an influence on students’ educational outcomes at school. In addition to these student-level factors, research has shown that school-level factors (a school’s geographical location and the proportion of Indigenous students a school caters for) need to be considered when summarising educational advantage or disadvantage at the school level. ICSEA provides a scale that numerically represents the relative magnitude of this influence, and is constructed taking into account both student- and school-level factors.

ICSEA is set at a median of 1000 and a standard deviation of 100. The lower the ICSEA value, the lower the level of educational advantage of students who go to this school. Similarly, the higher the ICSEA value, the higher the level of educational advantage of students who go to this school. 

Students of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander descent who identify themselves as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and are accepted as such by the community in which they live.

Broad field of education as per the Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED).

If the student or either parent speaks a language other than English at home, they are identified as LBOTE for My School reporting calculations. From 2015 onwards, the LBOTE percentage reported on My School is the proportion of all LBOTE students within a school's population (where available) as derived from student background data collected.

Please note: some schools report high levels of unknown/not-stated language codes in their student background data, which can result in an inflated/deflated calculation.

Schools that are located within 80 kilometres of the selected school. On My School, up to 20 schools are listed by distance, with those nearest to the selected school listed first. Schools that are in remote or very remote locations may have fewer local schools.

Distances between schools are calculated by determining the geographic location of each school, in terms of its latitude and longitude, on the basis of its address. 'Nearest' schools can be identified from their latitude and longitude information. The actual distance between schools is calculated by a formula determining the distance between 2 geographic points.

Consequently, distances between schools are calculated 'as a crow flies', and are not based on distance by road.

The region where the selected school is situated as defined by the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) remoteness indicator. The 5 possible locations are:

• major cities
• inner regional
• outer regional
• remote
• very remote.

A map showing the location of these areas, is available on the ABS website.

Students who sat two consecutive NAPLAN tests at the same school and have results at 2 year levels.

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is an annual national assessment for all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. All students in these year levels are expected to participate in NAPLAN tests in reading, writing, language conventions (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy.

For more information on NAPLAN, visit the NAP website.

Average NAPLAN score of students in Australia per year level and test domain.

NAPLAN participation is the proportion of all Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students who participated in at least one NAPLAN test.

Amount of income received by a school from the Australian Government, and state or territory government, plus fees, charges, parent/carer contributions and other private sources, which is available for expenditure relating to the ongoing costs of schools.

Amount of capital expenditure funded by capital loan draw-downs in the current year being reported.

For the My School website, Australia's schools are divided into 2 sectors: government and non-government.

Schools from the non-government sector operate under the authority of state or territory governments but are not operated by government education departments. Schools from the non-government sector may operate as individual schools, in small groups or as a system such as those coordinated by the Catholic Education Commission in each state and territory.

A member of a school who supports the school by providing educational services but does not directly teach students.

Non-teaching staff can be engaged at one or more schools and includes specialist support staff, such as counsellors, teachers’ aides and assistants, administrative and clerical staff, building operations, general maintenance and other service staff.

For government schools, this information is provided by a school's state or territory jurisdiction, so the number on My School includes only non-teaching staff employed by the jurisdiction.

Amount of capital expenditure funded through other private sources, including retained earnings from previous years.

Income received from other sources – donations, interest on bank accounts, profits on trading activities and profits from sale of assets. It includes some private income received for capital purposes and from school and community fundraising activities.

Parents’ occupation, school education and non-school education data provided by parents to schools. These data are used as the basis for the methodology of calculating a school’s ICSEA value. This information is usually collected at a school level when parents enrol their child at a school.

ICSEA percentile is a new measure to help users understand how educationally advantaged a school is.  An ICSEA percentile of 40 means that the school you have selected is more educationally advantaged than 40% of all schools in Australia (and more educationally disadvantaged than 60% of all schools in Australia).

Income received divided by the count of enrolled students.

A measure of the main activity of students who finished school. Post-school destinations include graduating year students who gained university placements, engaged in TAFE/vocational study or commenced employment. Only senior secondary schools from Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia (government schools only) and the Australian Capital Territory (government schools only) report this measure.

This measure has a large degree of variation between states and territories, since data are derived from separate surveys conducted by some of the states and territories. As such, the data should not be compared outside the state or territory in which the data are collected. The proportion of students that answered ‘Other’ are not reported under 'Post-school destinations'. As a result, percentages may not add up to 100.

Note that Western Australia did not participate in this survey for 2014.

Primary schools start with pre-Year 1 and finish with Year 6 except in South Australia, where they finish with Year 7.

The difference in the same students’ achievement levels between 2 testing years in the same test domain within a school.

Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) vocational education and training (VET) qualification level as specified (diploma or higher, Certificate IV, Certificate III, Certificate II, Certificate I, other). 'Other' includes education not classified elsewhere, statements of attainment not identifiable by level, bridging and enabling courses, plus other courses that do not lead to a qualification under the AQF.

An Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) qualification is a formal certification that a graduate has achieved as described in the AQF.

On the ‘School profile’ page of My School, the table presented alongside the school ICSEA value shows the distribution of students in the school across 4 socio-educational advantage (SEA) quarters, representing a scale of relative disadvantage (bottom quarter) through to relative advantage (top quarter). These quarters are calculated using only the student-level factors of educational advantage. SEA quarters give contextual information about the socio-educational composition of students in the school.

No SEA quarter information is displayed when there is insufficient information in the parent background variables to calculate a quartile distribution.

Income received by a school, which is available for expenditure relating to ongoing operating costs of the school (for example, teaching and non-teaching staff salaries, school operating costs).

Legal and/or contractual arrangements that allow students to undertake a part-time apprenticeship or traineeship while still at school. Students can combine paid part-time employment with training towards a nationally accredited vocational education and training (VET) qualification under the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) and other school studies. Depending on their pattern of study in the senior secondary certificate, students may be eligible for an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR).

Comments provided on the My School website by each school's principal or authorised representative.

These comments may include information about the school's teaching programs, student population, values or purpose.

Information provided by various sources. Government school information is provided by the respective state or territory education departments. For non-government schools, this information is provided by the Australian Government Department of Education.

The registered school name as provided to ACARA by the applicable school registration authority at a point in time when the data was last collected and reported on My School. For the most up to date list of registered school names visit the Australian Schools List website.

On the My School website, school sector is used to differentiate between government and non-government schools.

Schools may also belong to a school system (for example, the government school system in each state and territory or the Catholic school system in a particular state) or operate independently of any school system. Additional information on the affiliation of non-government schools may be available in the ‘School comments’ and 'Sector, system or association website' provided by the school.

On the My School website, schools are categorised as primary, secondary, combined or special. Combined schools offer both primary and secondary education. Special purpose schools cater for students with physical or intellectual disabilities, autism or social/emotional disturbance, or students who are in custody, on remand or in hospital.

NAPLAN results are reported on My School in average scaled scores.

Secondary schooling starts in Year 7 in all states except in South Australia, where it currently starts in Year 8.

A senior secondary schooling qualification issued by the curriculum, assessment and certification authority in the relevant state or territory. Senior secondary certificates of education are qualifications within the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF).

Senior secondary outcomes reflect the following key areas of student achievement:

• awarding of senior secondary certificate of education
• completion of senior secondary school.

Data on senior secondary outcomes are provided to ACARA by state and territory curriculum, assessment and certification authorities.

Students have a similar background as determined by parental occupation and education. The background of students has been shown to have an impact on NAPLAN results.

On the ‘School profile’ page of My School, the table presented alongside the school ICSEA value shows the distribution of students in the school across 4 socio-educational advantage (SEA) quarters, representing a scale of relative disadvantage (bottom quarter) through to relative advantage (top quarter). These quarters are calculated using only the student-level factors of educational advantage. SEA quarters give contextual information about the socio-educational composition of students in the school.

No SEA quarter information is displayed when there is insufficient information in the parent background variables to calculate a quartile distribution.

A school, designated by its school authority as 'special' or 'special purpose', caters for students:

• with mental or physical disability or impairment
• with slow learning ability
• with social or emotional problems
• in custody, on remand or in hospital.

A measure of variability in student performances. Approximately 68% of student results are expected to fall between minus one and plus one standard deviation around the mean.

Amount of capital expenditure funded by state and territory governments.

Income sourced from funding provided by state and territory governments for recurrent purposes.

Student attendance level is defined as the proportion of Years 1–10 full-time students, whose attendance rate is greater than, or equal to, 90% over the (reporting) period.

Student attendance level information is collected by schools and reported on My School twice yearly by Indigenous status for Semester 1 (Terms 1 and 2) and Term 3.

For further information, please refer to the National Standards for Student Attendance Data Reporting (PDF 375 kb).

Student attendance rate is defined as a number of actual full-time equivalent student days attended by full-time students in Years 1–10 as a percentage of the total number of possible student days attended over the (reporting) period.

The student attendance rate information is collected by schools and reported on My School twice yearly by Indigenous status for Semester 1 (Terms 1 and 2) and Term 3.

For further information, refer to the National Standards for Student Attendance Data Reporting (PDF 375 kb).

Student background includes gender, Indigenous status, parent occupation and education level, and language background; this information is collected by schools from students' parents or carers via enrolment forms.

The average NAPLAN achievement of students at a selected school compared to the average NAPLAN achievement of students with similar background or of all Australian students.

If a selected school's average is ‘above’ or ‘below’ the comparison school's average by more than half (>0.5) of one standard deviation, the difference is deemed to be substantial for the purposes of the My School website. The terms ‘above’ and ‘below’ represent a difference of between one-fifth and a half (between 0.2 and 0.5) of a standard deviation in magnitude.

Staff who spend the majority of their time in contact with students either in classes or on an individual basis, and are responsible for teaching a school curriculum. Teaching staff include principals, deputy principals and senior teachers who have administrative duties. Teachers’ aides, teachers' assistants and specialist support staff are categorised as non-teaching staff.

On the My School website, the number of teaching staff is the head count of full-time and part-time teaching staff employed by a school for non-government schools; for government schools, it is the number of teaching staff (both full-time and part-time) assigned to a school providing educational services directly to students. For government schools, this information is provided by a school's state or territory jurisdiction, so the number on My School includes only staff employed by the jurisdiction.

Total expenditure incurred on capital works and services in a current year being reported.

Number of students registered to attend a selected school as at the school census date on the first Friday in August. This number includes both full-time and part-time enrolments.

Amount of recurrent income received by a school from the Australian Government and state and territory governments, plus gross income from fees, charges, parent/carer contributions and other private sources.

The standardised national training system that provides skills and knowledge for work and potential certification for participants. School students undertaking VET have access to nationally accredited vocational qualifications under the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF). VET courses are delivered to school students by registered training organisations including schools, community colleges, TAFE institutes and private colleges. VET may be provided off the job and/or in a workplace environment. Workplace training is a significant part of all apprenticeships and traineeships.

Students withdrawn by their parents/carers from NAPLAN testing.

The years of schooling offered by a school, including the Foundation Year (pre-Year 1) and Years 1–12. The abbreviations used on the My School website for the Foundation Year of schooling are consistent with the terms used by each state and territory.

The Foundation Year is known as Preparatory (Prep) in Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania; Kindergarten (K) in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory; Reception (R) in South Australia; Pre-primary (PP) in Western Australia and Transition (T) in the Northern Territory.

'U' (ungraded) refers to students and/or classes, that cannot readily be allocated to a specific year of schooling. This may include students with special education needs.