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Data & methods

Understand what the figures measure and where they come from.

Results and school profiles have different coverage

This dataset contains 7,007 source rows from 2014–2025, represented as 744 exact school/name/locality identities. These are not a reconciled current-school or campus count. School profile and coordinate fields end in 2024; 2025 results are still included.

What each measure means

Median study score

The reported annual school median, out of 50. This is not an ATAR or an estimate of teaching quality.

Study scores 40+ (%)

Percentage of study scores of 40 or higher. The denominator is study scores, not students.

Satisfactory VCE completion (%)

The reported percentage of satisfactory VCE completions.

Tertiary applications (%)

VCE students applying for tertiary places through VTAC. Applications are not admissions.

ICSEA

Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage. School context, not an academic outcome or teaching-quality score.

Total school enrolments

Whole-school enrolments, not the VCE cohort size.

Teaching staff

Teaching staff reported in the ACARA school profile for the stated year.

Sources and downloads

Transformations and identity

The Python ETL reads the source spreadsheets, standardises yearly columns and joins ACARA context using the manually maintained school-name crosswalk and the same year. Its existing inner join can omit schools missing from that crosswalk. The website publishes that analytical CSV without dropping any further source rows.

A deterministic ID uses the exact ACARA ID, source name and locality. Names at different localities stay separate. Name changes and campuses are not automatically merged into a supposedly continuous history. Confirm identities against the original sources before interpreting historical changes.

Missing results, rankings and interpretation

All years uses a Python-calculated, unweighted average of each school’s available annual values. Each measure has its own available-year count; missing years are not zero. Rankings use the unrounded average and default to at least 50 average whole-school enrolments. An average of annual school medians is not a pooled median of student scores.

The existing ETL collapses source markers such as “–” and “I/D” into nulls. We display “Unavailable in this dataset”, not zero, because the analytical file cannot distinguish the original states. Rankings count unavailable values separately and include ties at the cutoff using competition ranking. No average of school medians is presented as a statewide student benchmark.

Annual cohorts differ. Changes in study scores use points; rates use percentage points. Intake, size, subjects and student circumstances affect results. No single measure is an overall school-quality rating.

Dates and reproducibility

Results, profiles and coordinates each retain their actual source year. No verified dataset refresh timestamp is supplied, so none is invented. The map defaults to the latest year with location coverage and single-year views do not borrow older coordinates. All-years summaries use the latest recorded location and sector for each exact source identity, explicitly showing their dates alongside the averaging period.

Analytical CSV SHA-256: 896a54f1a9734405744da3b996dc083051c8f76fe2280fdaab269a1579129394

Corrections

Found a mismatched school or a transcription problem? Open a correction issue with the school name, locality, year, measure and original source reference. Source-row numbers appear on school profiles. This independent project is not affiliated with VCAA or ACARA.