OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Been so busy not really had time to get to grips with these.
My 15 yr old tells me that OP scores are averaged out accross the class etc. Ie, if she got a 3 and the rest of the class get a 9, her actual OP is averaged out and likley to be much lower, ie, 4 - 6.
Doesn't make sense to me.
Can anyone explain this?

Andrew

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

this should explain ops for ya:

http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/te/faqs/ops.html

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

the OP is basically a QTAC (qld tertiary admissions centre..... UCAS by any other name!! hehehe) creation to work out a QLD yr12 student's position based on overall achievement in school subjects.

for Uni entry the course will have a QTAC rate.... you're OP must be at or above this rate...

OP1 is QTAC 99
OP2 is QTAC 98... etc etc but with some varations.


as far as i'm aware it's on YOUR acheivements and no one elses... fail to see how someone in your class getting a bad mark can bring yours down (which is in essence what your daughter is saying)... that a) doesn't make sense; b) isn't logical; and C) isn't fair!! i would ask them to explain it to her again (because it's stupidly complicated for something which should be simple!)



more from the qtac website www.qtac.edu.au

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Andrew is right!!

The final OP score is also based on the school and all Queensland school results so your child may perform very well but could well get a lower OP based on external factors.

The system sucks and is so bloody complicated.

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

OPs provide a statewide rank order of students based on their achievement in Authority subjects taken for the Queensland Senior Certificate. They tell how well students performed in their Senior studies when compared with the performance of all other students in the State.

OP calculation begins with the students results in each subject studied. These are reported on the Senior Certificate in terms of five ‘levels of achievement’: Very High Achievement; High Achievement; Sound
Achievement; Limited Achievement; and Very Limited Achievement.

However, each level of achievement covers a range of achievement and these results are too broad for calculating OPs. For these calculations, finer grained comparisons of student achievement are necessary.These finer grained comparisons are provided by the Subject Achievement Indicators (SAIs).

An SAI is a number which shows one student’s achievement in relation to the achievement of other students in that subject in that school. Each OP-eligible
student is awarded an SAI for each subject studied. The group of students studying a particular subject in a particular school is called a ‘subject-group’.
For large subject-groups (14 students or more studying that subject in that school), SAIs range from 400 (highest performing student in that subject in that school) to 200 (lowest performing student in that subject in that school). This range of numbers from 400 to 200 is used simply to compare the
achievement of students in the subject-group.

Once the SAIs have been scaled to produce the scaled SAIs, they can be compared across all subjects within a school. Scaled SAIs show how well each student has performed when compared with the overall performance of all other students in the school. Scaled SAIs only allow comparison of achievement between subjects within a school and do not allow comparison
of achievement between schools within a subject. To produce a single rank order of students within the school, an Overall Achievement Indicator (OAI) is
calculated. This is the average result across each student’s ‘best five subjects’. ‘Best’ means best scaled SAIs.




A high performing student in a low performing group is NOT disadvantaged provided this student really does demonstrate considerably better achievement compared to the other students. Doing just a bit better than weak competition does not demonstrate outstanding achievement. The student’s much better performance will be reflected in a large gap between the SAI of that student and SAIs of other students. This relative gap is retained in the scaling. In other words, that student’s Scaled SAI will be much higher than those of the other students. Obtaining a high OP or FPs requires consistently outstanding performance in all subjects. Actual achievements of students are what count.

Schools may have very different proportions of students in each OP band. These proportions depend on the achievement of the students. There is no predetermined allocation of OPs to schools. OPs are awarded to students, not to schools.



All information directly from Queensland Studies Authority (2004)

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

I am right!!
Unusual eh!

Anyway, it does appear that if you have "thickos" and "time wasters" in your class your OP is bought down accordingly by them. Let alone the State wide results!

One of the links supplied lead to the attaced which is the closest I have found to plain English to explain how it all works. God knows how the kids are supposed to understand.

QLD OP scores for all schools can be found here http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.a...schoolsop.html

This year was the first they were published much to many school's dismay. It appears that it is worthwhile to send your kid to a schools with a high OP average as they are more likley to get higher OP if their class and school does well. At least this is what I understand and why many students are currently being passed around from pillar to post to better achieving school.

This does not make sense at all and only benefits the low achievers.

Andrew

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

The school will do its best to manipulate the process the benefit of its students ... for example, the true slackers will not be tolerated in an OP eligible class and will be "encouraged" into a class where they cannot affect the whole group average.

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

sorry i'm going to have to persist with this (since i was forced to sit through several lectures on this 2 weeks ago)....

If you are in a class and you are scoring highly and the rest of the class are scoring, well not highly, their results WILL NOT bring yours down.

Once you have all your results (from all subjects) the Qld DET use 2 different scales to work out what your Overal Position is in relation to the rest of the state.

Whilst it's true that if you are in a class of very bright people you may find yourself being pushed to get better grades, being in a class where you are the brightest doesn't mean that the "thickos" will pull your mark down. Infact you need to be scoring over a certain amount to be eligible to even get an OP! most "time wasters" and "thickos" will end up leaving school without them.

ALSO, the OPs are rewarded to each student individually, not a certain amount to particular schools.


all this info is on the website brisnick posted.


Yo
(currently working towards getting a good OP!!!!!!)

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Andrew
I was unable to access the courier mail webpage with the op results for schools. I have searched for this but have not had any luck. Do you still have these details?

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

I believe it is an unnecessarily complicated system and have heard that this is the last year it will be used (but haven't seen anything official on this yet).

Our daughter was told that her projected OP score would improve if she improved her grades in Maths and English. We arranged extra tuition for Maths and she improved her grades in both subjects. The projected OP score was no different from the previous time and when queried we were told that other pupils in the school had improved their grades also and as she was 'in competition' with them she would need to improve MORE than they improved to gain a better OP score!

I'll be glad to get over this year and out of the OP nonsense.

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Remember this is Queensland! Any government system sucks. They had a better grading system in place years ago.

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Hence the popularity, waiting lists and high fees of the "top" private high schools. Think how much that saves the gov ;) .

There seems to be moret talk every year of every state needing to overhaul onto ONE system for australian kids. Its crazy so many schemes going on in a country with quite a small population.

Plus there is the age difference state to state, our youngest will finish grade 12 (university entrance level of high school when he is 16, thats good, gets school over early but maturity wise I think thats why the university drop out rate is so high.

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Sorry Debs, I don't have it any more as my PC died.
FYI, my daughter transferred to a higher OP scoring school and is now excelling having classmates of the same intelligence level and teachers that encourage rathert than hold back. Seems like a lot of kids do chp and change schools especially going to the better OP schools for years 11 and 12.

Andrew

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Thanks Andrew
My pc also died last night - third time in three months:( Everytime I intall a windows update.
I would be interested to see those op score tables for the Gold Coast as I was wondering how some of the private schools on the Gold Coast performed.

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Deb, I have the paper copy of the tables here. Remind me to bring it with me when we next meet.

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Thanks Pen. Will give u a ring and maybe come over for a coffee sometime this week.

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Found this link to the tables (which they say are NOT league tables!)

http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/yrs11_12/s...2006_04_03.pdf

Also see Wikipedia (search overall_position) and:

http://www.answers.com/topic/overall-position

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

i have a copy in excel form

just a tick


here it is

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

thanks for the links

regards steve

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Thanks for the spreadsheet!

Far too little info in tables though. I would like to see how many students achieved op1, op1-5, op6-10, op11-15 etc. The majority of Uni Courses require op's of 1-10 the highest (worse) op requirement I've seen was 17.

Looks like there's a good bit of fear in the education system which means the hard info will be very difficult to get hold of, except from individual school prospectuses if they choose to publish it.

Are there any secondary teachers on here who can tell us where to find a table including the info I mentioned above?

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Arnie, I would alos be interested in seing the scores for OP 1-10.

Re: OP Scores ?? What are they?
 

Went to Hayley's school yesterday afternoon to get clarification of the Uni Application system and options if H doesn't get the course she wants.

Learnt a bit more about the OP scores shown in the QTAC Uni Course Guide....

It seems that each course has a pre-determined number of places allocated and students are then placed on the course starting from OP1. If the course numbers are met by the time they get to a student with say an OP of 9, that's the figure that ends up next to the course the following year - as a guide to the kind of grade which may be neccessary to get on the course during that following year. It isn't an OP number which Guarantees a place - just a guide.

It's a shame this system didn't end last year instead of this year, but no doubt its successor will be just as much a bureaucratic nightmare as this one is.

The 'good' news is that a year at TAFE or University will almost certainly give anyone with a bit of sense the OP score they need for the course they want, just a year and a few $$$$$ later :D

Good Luck