“How can this be the case? My partner and I were dumbfounded by these statistics.

“At our children’s previous school in Adelaide the figures were about five percent.

“Does the community not realise that the school is producing so many students who are failing these key subjects?

“How can these students be promoted to high school when their skills are so low?

“Is this just a problem within this school or is this endemic to Port Pirie?”

Inquiries by the newspaper have shown that the modern-day educationalist would respond to the parent’s comments about “failing” subjects by saying” “That depends on what is meant by failing.”

Students in the government education system are not required to reach benchmarks in one year level before progressing to the next year level.

This even can apply to Year 12 where choices of subject strands are vital.

This is an area for debate because there was a media report this week saying that fewer Year 12 students are passing maths and science subjects, raising the spectre of skills shortages in jobs.

And, further to the debate, the Federal Government is talking about issuing comparisons of schools.

To add fire to the controversy, the statistics referred to by the parent were issued by Pirie West on behalf of the Federal Government.

The Recorder was allowed to see the documents in question.

One set of statistics was for mid-year in Year 7 and showed that in a class of 29 students, 21 received a D or E for English, representing 72 percent of the class.

It must be remembered that a C mark is supposed to represent the level at which the class is working.

Some of the students in some classes are considered to be performing well because they have made up ground after starting in Reception several years “behind” their classmates due to a variety of issues including socio-economic factors, unemployment and poverty.

“What no-one knows is the progress the students have made to get to that level,” Ms Arthur said.

“Some may work very hard and put in tremendous effort, but may not achieve at their age-appropriate level.

“It is a delicate issue. We are doing our absolute best. The teachers are working really hard.

“We employ additional staff and run a lot of additional programs so we can support students with their learning.

“It is counter-productive if people misinterpret and write letters.

“We invite the person who wrote the letter to come and discuss the matter.”

In explaining the way the school operated, she said the South Australian Curriculum Framework set certain standards for each year level.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government also required the school to report twice a year to parents.

This all adds up to a more intricate model of education than in years past.

Ms O’Toole said: “Education is much more complex than when we were at school.

“It was more concise ... now it involves life-long education.

“Children will come with a range of different readiness for learning.

“If you start a couple of years behind at Reception, you take a while to catch up.

“A student may have a D or E, but they may have started at a point behind the rest of the class when they entered the school.

“So, in fact, that student might be growing faster than the other students in that class, but may have not attained the age-appropriate achievement.

“We look at the needs of individual children and support them to develop ... so some will have to work very hard to achieve age-appropriate achievement by Year 7.”