The Prairie South School Division has seen growth in its students year-over-year when it comes to reading, writing and math proficiencies. 

The statistics were presented to the Board of Trustees on Tuesday afternoon. 

The school division had a dip in reading levels for Grade 1 students during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 2018-2019 school year, 73.1 per cent were proficient in reading but that number dropped to 67.9 per cent in 2020-2021. The numbers are starting to get back pre-pandemic at 68.8 per cent in 2021-2022.  

No data was taken during the 2019-2020 school year as schools shut down in March due to the pandemic. 

“We know that the COVID-19 pandemic created a varying degree of disruptions in learning for our students. We continue to ensure that reading, writing, and math are instructed and assessed using effective approaches and practices,” said Amanda Olson, Superintendent of Learning. 

The data also looked at the same cohort of students year-over-year. Grade 1 students last year that are now in Grade 2 saw a 4.3 per cent growth. Students now in Grade 3 but were in Grade 2 last year saw growth of 3.9 per cent. 

“This cohort of students is also the cohort of students that would have been in Grade 1 during the 2020 shutdown, and they missed some key literacy instruction face-to-face during that time when we were shut down from March to June,” Olson said. 

Olson noted that Grade 3 students are four to six per cent ahead of the provincial average. 

Meanwhile, for writing, the school division collects data for students in Grades 4, 7 and 9. 

Grade 4 students for the 2021-2022 school year had a 60.3 per cent proficiency. 

The Grade 7 students would be the same cohort as the Grade 4s from the 2018-2019 school year. From the end of Grade 4 to the end of Grade 7, the school division saw 10.3 per cent growth year-over-year. 

Grade 9 in 2021-2022 had a proficiency of 63.8 per cent, but the cohort could not be compared year-over-year. 

“We would have collected data when they were in Grade 7, but that was during the 2020 shutdown, so we don't have the data for them and when they were in Grade 4, we wouldn't have been using the same measure because the provincial rubrics had changed so we don't have that same cohort to cohort comparison,” Olson explained. 

For math, the school division gathered data from students in Grades 2, 5 and 8.  

Prairie South did see a drop in proficiency of seven per cent from Grade 2 to Grade 5. It is a trend the school division is seeing as the proficiency in Grade 2 is around the mid-70s, but it drops to the mid to high-60s in Grade 5. 

Olson said that, in conversation with consultants, there are a number of factors that could have come into play. 

“We believe that that could be contributed to the increase in the number of skills that are required from the time you're in Grade 2 to Grade 5 as well as just the complexity of those skills that are being taught because once you get from Grade 5 to Grade 8, you actually see a significant amount of growth,” she said. 

The school division had a 9.6 per cent increase in growth in math from Grade 5 to Grade 8.