At least on one level, the pandemic was good to Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar.

The socio-educationally advantaged school had been a model of academic consistency before COVID-19 hit, posting a median VCE study score of 34 every year between 2012 and 2019, well above the state average.

But in 2020, when most students spent more than 100 days learning from home, it hit a new high median of 35, a result it replicated last year, despite students again missing months of face-to-face learning due to lockdowns.

Ivanhoe Girls Grammar principal Deborah Priest with year 12 students Margo Joseph (left) and Greta Fuhr.Credit:Eddie Jim

Principal Dr Deborah Priest said many of the school’s senior students thrived at home.

“Many of our girls talk to us about really enjoying the autonomy to set up their little workspace at home [and] make some decisions about when they want to work,” she said.

The school also reduced its expectations of the volume of work students should do, encouraging them to study deeply, not broadly.

“That meant we didn’t have to cover so much content, and the girls could really focus their learning,” Priest said.

The improvement in results has led The Age to award Ivanhoe Girls its Schools the Excel winner among non-government schools in Melbourne’s north.

You can view the full list of winning schools, and explore the data for your secondary school using this year’s Schools that Excel dashboard:

The award also recognises the significant improvement achieved in individual VCE study scores, with 25.5 per cent of such scores at 40 or higher last year, putting those students in the top 9 per cent in the state.

Year 12 student Greta Fuhr, a member of the student representative council, said she never felt under external pressure to work harder, though teachers were always available to offer support.

“The school puts it on the students to make it their responsibility,” she said.

“At the end of the day the school reinforces that ‘we want you to do your best’ and the students themselves know that they want to do their best, so the school and the students work together.”

Margo Joseph, the school’s captain of sport, said the school’s smaller size relative to many other schools (it has about 800 students spanning from prep to year 12) engendered a closeness among peers.

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