Eagleby South State School

Location: Logan City, Queensland

Eagleby South State School, located halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, has an enrolment of approximately 410 students from a range of socio-economic and culturally diverse backgrounds, including Pacifica, European, African and Asian. About 20 per cent of students have English as their second language, and the majority are from low-income backgrounds. Almost one-fifth of students are Indigenous


How Eagleby South has used its Gonski funding

Eagleby South received $324,000 in Gonski funding during 2014 and 2015. This has allowed the school to build on the extra resources it received from the previous National Partnerships program.

The additional funding has been invested in improving student achievement in literacy and numeracy. Both short and longer term strategies have been put in place to develop the skills of staff in working with students from diverse backgrounds, many of whom experience some form of educational disadvantage.

It also allows the school to provide individual students who need specific learning support with more teacher and teacher aide time and resources, and to focus more on identifying and diagnosing intellectual disabilities and giving those students more support.


How Gonski funding has made a difference for students

The principal, Andrew Barnes, says that “National Partnerships funding provided a foundation for improvement but Gonski funding has provided the means to ‘cement’ and build on these foundations.”

The additional funding has allowed the school to stabilise a professional well-equipped motivated team of teachers and support staff, which has been of great benefit to students. In three years, the number of students achieving the national minimum standards in Year 3 and 5 Writing has risen by 20 per cent, with all students now achieving at or above that level.

Eagleby South is now performing well above the expected level of improvement since 2008 in all areas of NAPLAN. Over 50 per cent of the junior school are now reading at age level, as are over 70 per cent of grade 6 and 7 students, up from 50 per cent.

Enrolments have also increased steadily over recent years, associated with the school’s success with at-risk young people, including a number of students in out-of-home care who attend the school.


What Eagleby South could do with Gonski in the future

The full six years of Gonski funding would allow the school to continue its successful early literacy and numeracy programs. It would also expand the number of hours of specialist time to assist in assessment and identification of special needs and disability, as the current allocation is vastly insufficient for the real level of disability in the school. The school would also invest in more IT resources for the large numbers of students who do not have access to technology outside the school.

<<< BACK


More Gonski Success Stories

Upper Coomera State College
Upper Coomera SC is an urban Prep to Year 12 school with a highly diverse student population.
Cowandilla Primary School
Cowandilla Primary school, in Adelaide’s inner western suburbs, has an enrolment of 440 students from a wide range of socioeconomic, cultural and language backgrounds, and many students change schools regularly.
Craigmore High School
Craigmore High School, in outer northern Adelaide, has around 950 students, including 62 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and 84 students from non-English-speaking backgrounds, together with 150 students with identified disabilities.
Sydney Secondary College Leichhardt Campus
It comprising two Years 7-10 campuses (Leichhardt and Balmain) and one Year 11-12 campus (Blackwattle Bay). The Leichhardt Campus, which has 900 students, is a socioeconomically and culturally diverse middle school. Around 3 % of students are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.
Glenelg Primary School
Glenelg Primary School, located in beachside Adelaide, has 760 students from diverse economic and cultural backgrounds.
Box Hill High School
Box Hill HS, an established multicultural co-educational secondary school in suburban Melbourne, has an enrolment of about 1,230 students. 825 students are English-speaking, and 450 speak, in total, more than 53 languages other than English.
Spinifex State College, Mount Isa Education and Training Precinct
It is a modern college with a junior campus (Years 7 – 9), a senior campus (years 10 – 12) and a residential campus. About half of the school’s 850 students are from low SES backgrounds, with three quarters in the lowest two SES quartiles.
Wodonga Senior Secondary College: Benalla Flexible Learning Centre
Benalla Flexible Learning Centre was established in February 2015 as a campus of Wodonga Senior Secondary College to provide an alternative educational program for young people aged between 14 and 19 years who have had difficulties with mainstream education.
Mahogany Rise Primary School
Most of Mahogany Rise’s almost 150 students are from low-income backgrounds. Around one-fifth are from non-English speaking backgrounds and there are a number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
Merrylands High School
Merrylands High School, a comprehensive high school in western Sydney, has an enrolment of about 720 students from a diverse range of socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds.
Carina State School
Carina State School is an inner-city Brisbane multicultural school with an enrolment of approximately 325 students. Just under half of the students are from low-income backgrounds.
Cairns West State School
Cairns West State School is a primary school that serves three suburbs with the highest density of public housing in Queensland. Its enrolment of 730 culturally-diverse and complex-needs students are almost all from low-income backgrounds, and less than 9% have English as their first language.