Barely half of Grade 6 students in Ottawa meet Ontario math standard

Only slightly more than half ofGrade 6 students in Ottawa's two English school boards met the provincial standard during math testing in the last school year.

When the province-wideresults for Englishwere released by the Education Quality and AccountabilityOfficein August, they showed Grade 6math scores in English-language boards have declinedeight percentage pointsover the last five years, even though the percentage of students meeting the standard inreading and writinghadimproved by six percentage points.

• Only 50%of Grade 6 students met province's math standard

Local results releasedWednesday showstudents here scored only slightly better than the provincial trend.

In the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, 53 per cent of its5,000 Grade 6 students last school year metor exceededthe provincial standard. Among its Grade 3 students, 62 per cent met the standard.

In the Ottawa Catholic Board, 54 per cent of its2,670 students tested met the standard, compared with70 per cent of its Grade 3 students.

By contrast, 84 per cent of the same Grade 6 students in the Catholic board met the standard on theirreading and writing tests during the 2015-16 school year, while their peers inthe public board had similar results.

French-language boards show dramatically different results

Meanwhile, Ottawa's French-language boards have no such struggles with their Grade 6 math results.

Eighty-six per cent of Grade 6 students in the Conseil des coles publiques de l'Est de l'Ontario and 89 per cent of Grade 6 students in the Conseil des coles catholiques du Centre-Est met the provincial standard for math.

At a news conference at Ottawa's Horizon-Jeunesse French Catholic elementary school Thursday, Ontario's premier didn't explain directlythe dramatic discrepancy between the English- and French-language boards.

Instead, Kathleen Wynne said her government's plan to boost math scores has similarities with strategies that seem to be working forFrench-language boards.

The director of the French-CatholicCentre-Est board, for instance, described how teachers and principals work as teams, consult with experts, and use data to regularly monitor whether some students need extra help.

"I hope we'll start to see those results in the other school boards, in the other schools,as we start to take on those practices," said Wynne.

Ontario focusing on boosting math scores

That government strategy involves funding up to three so-called "math leaders" in all elementary schools, a professional development day for teachers dedicated to math, and making sure that each studentacross the province receives 60 minutes of math instruction per day in grades one through eight.

• Ontario promises $60M to help students across Ontario get better math results

"I see the numbers and I see that we have work to do, not only as districtbutas a province," said Dorothy Baker, superintendent of curriculum services for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.

"So I'm pleased to see the renewed math strategy and the focus on this."

Baker said Ottawa-Carleton schools already had that hour of instruction, but she thinks theextra, more co-ordinatedfocuson math will help students.

Another change in the public board this year isthat math is being taught in English in all grades, where some students in the younger grades used to learn it in French.