The principal at Francis Patton Primary School has warned against ranking schools based on the Cambridge Primary Checkpoint exam results.

Garita Coddington, whose school was rated “OK” with an average of just over 2.6 out of 6 between 2012 and 2015, stressed assessments by the local education ministry must be taken into consideration when judging school performance.

The Checkpoint results, for students in the final year of primary school, aim to give an international benchmark of student performance and identify specific learning needs in core subjects English, maths and science.

A score of 3 is grade level; Francis Patton’s 2.6 was the lowest average of Bermuda’s 18 public primary schools, with Elliot, Victor Scott, West End, Prospect and East End also scoring below 3.

But Ms Coddington pointed to localised tests that are being carried out by the Ministry of Education.

“Cambridge is a test where you don’t categorise schools — it is to support what needs to be done as students prepare for senior school. It is a growth model,” she told The Royal Gazette.

“The conversation needs to change because we will have what happens in the US — teachers teaching to the test and not having students who have conceptual understandings moving on to middle schools.

“I don’t support ranking schools based on a P6 or M3 Checkpoint test.

“Our own Ministry is doing its assessments at the P4, P5 level and those are about what is expected from the national maths and national literary strategies. If we want to have a conversation we can’t just have it about schools with Checkpoint — we should also be having a conversation about the local standardised assessment results.”

On release of the results last week, acting education commissioner Freddie Evans stressed that the Checkpoint exams were designed to be “purely diagnostic”.

“The results are not appropriate to use in silo as a ranking tool for assessing school success or school achievement,” Dr Evans said. “In this regard, all primary public schools should be looked at in their entirety by taking other associated factors into consideration as many P6 classes vary in both size and composition as it relates to student complexities at the different primary schools.” Ms Coddington said efforts were being made at Francis Patton to improve local and global assessments.

“We have a new team in place and we have some strong teachers who have a keen interest in delivering curriculum at a high standard.

“The team focuses on the academic growth of every child in our building, putting the necessary interventions in place, attending more professional development courses and equipping our parents with the necessary tools to support their child or children at home. Our focus is a growth model: to grow the whole child as a learner.

“The students are on board with knowing that we are going to dig deep to grow academically. The team is dedicated.

“The team understands the work that needs to be done in all areas and our job is to meet weekly to talk about instruction and how we are showing growth every six to eight weeks with our students.

“This week we are having assessments and then we have instruction. We have assessment conversations next week and we talk about what we are going to do for the next six weeks to move children forward.

“It is my strong belief that once we have teachers delivering rigorous instruction to support the curriculum then you will see growth in students.”