Holy Cross Catholic Primary School in Kincumber partnered with Essential Assessment to support clear, consistent assessment practices and performance.
Holy Cross Catholic Primary School is a warm, community-centred K–6 school of approximately 296 students within Catholic Schools Broken Bay (CSBB). Over the past three years, the school has worked deliberately to build consistent, curriculum-aligned assessment routines and strengthen staff capacity in data-informed instruction. In 2025, the school continued to embed a structured Pre–Mid–Post assessment cycle across all three NSW Mathematics strands: Number & Algebra, Measurement & Space, and Statistics & Probability.
This case study provides an overview of student achievement, strand performance, growth patterns, engagement insights and emerging improvement priorities.
1. Whole-School Achievement Story (K–6)
Across the school, there is a clear progression in mathematics achievement from Kindergarten to Year 6. Strong early-year performance — particularly in Kindergarten and Year 1 — is a defining feature, with cohorts typically finishing the year at or above expected levels.
- Kindergarten demonstrates the highest end-of-year alignment to expected benchmarks across all strands.
- Years 1–3 show strong, stable attainment, particularly in Number & Algebra and Measurement & Space.
- Year 4 presents a mixed picture: strong in Measurement & Space, but slightly below expected levels in Number & Algebra and Statistics & Probability.
- Year 5 finishes above expectation across all strands.
- Year 6 finishes close to benchmark, with room to strengthen reasoning, flexibility and depth.
2. Engagement Insights
The school’s Essential Assessment (EA) usage patterns provide important context for interpreting achievement and growth.
2.1 Engagement by user type
The EA platform is being used overwhelmingly by students, reflecting strong classroom implementation and consistent assessment practice across K–6. Teacher and class-level interactions sit at sustainable levels, indicating that EA routines are embedded without excessive teacher workload.
Insight:
High student usage, combined with steady teacher interaction, reflects a healthy and efficient adoption pattern for a school in its third year of implementation.
2.2 Assessment timing
In 2025, Holy Cross made deliberate and thoughtful use of a range of assessment types and timing points to support teaching and learning. With mid-cycle assessments available only for Common Grade Assessments, the school prioritised a structured approach by assessing each mathematics strand three times across the year and supplementing this with Focus Area Assessments, Flexi Assessments, and assessments aligned with NSW Department units of work. The high proportion of Pre Assessments reflects a strong commitment to establishing clear baseline data, while the consistent use of Post Assessments ensures reliable end-of-year growth measurement.
3. Growth Commentary
The growth data adds an essential dimension to understanding student learning. The dotted lines in each graph represent expected Mid-year growth (0.5) and expected full-year growth (1.0).
Number & Algebra Growth
- K, 1, 4 meet or exceed expected mid-year growth.
- Year 2 is the only cohort that exceeds full-year expected growth (≈1.25).
- Years 3, 5, 6 show limited growth across the year.
Insight:
Early acceleration is strong, but upper primary shows a plateau that requires targeted intervention and extension.
Measurement & Space Growth
- K, 1, 4 exceed expected mid-year growth.
- K, 1, 2, 4 exceed expected full-year growth.
- Years 5 and 6 show minimal measurable progress.
Insight:
This is the strongest growth strand, particularly in Kindergarten, Year 2 and Year 4.
Statistics & Probability Growth
- Kindergarten exceeds the expected full-year benchmark (≈1.25).
- Years 1 and 2 make moderate but below-expected progress.
- Years 3–5 show near-zero growth.
- Year 6 shows some improvement (≈0.5), but not yet full-year growth.
Insight:
Statistics & Probability is the strand with the most consistent undergrowth and represents the clearest targeted improvement area across middle and upper primary.
4. Key Growth Themes
Early years are a strength
Strong acceleration in Kindergarten and significant late-year gains in Year 2 show that early-years numeracy routines are highly effective.
Middle primary shows mixed patterns
Year 4 shows standout growth in Measurement & Space but limited gains elsewhere. Year 3 reflects stable attainment but low growth.
Upper primary plateau
Years 5 and 6 maintain stable attainment but show limited movement across the year, pointing to a need for deliberate extension and deeper reasoning tasks.
Statistics & Probability needs targeted improvement
This strand presents the most persistent growth challenges, especially between Years 3–5.
5. Leadership Reflection
Over the past three years, Holy Cross has implemented EA as a key tool for supporting student learning, and its impact has been significant. School leaders consistently acknowledge the guidance and expertise provided by the Essential Assessment Curriculum Support Team, particularly in helping staff move beyond surface-level use of assessment data to more accurate interpretation and application. This partnership has supported leaders to establish shared expectations around assessment practice and build a common language for discussing student progress across the school.
At a leadership level, EA has brought increased clarity and consistency to assessment routines, particularly through the establishment of reliable baseline data and coherent strand-level tracking across K–6. Data conversations are now more purposeful and strategic, centring on clearly identified strengths in the early years (Kindergarten, Years 1, 2 and 5), emerging needs across Years 3–6, and priority strands such as Statistics & Probability and late-stage Number & Algebra. Annual norm-referenced mathematics analysis has highlighted a strong-performing core cohort, while also drawing attention to the need for more intentional stretch and challenge for high-achieving and upper-middle learners. Leaders continue to focus on strengthening strand-level interpretation and leveraging EA’s data views to ensure targeted enabling and extending pathways, supporting consistent growth across the whole cohort.
Building capacity and professional learning
Leaders and teachers consistently highlighted the value of sustained professional subscriber support and instructional coaching in strengthening assessment practice at the classroom level. Teachers reported that targeted professional learning supported them to analyse and track student achievement with greater confidence, identify patterns of growth and non-growth, and use this evidence to make informed adjustments to instruction. As a result, post-assessment conversations have become an embedded part of practice, particularly in refining the front-loading of essential concepts prior to subsequent assessment cycles.
Professional learning days were described as highly motivating and impactful due to their strong practical focus and immediate classroom applicability. Teachers reported increased confidence in using daily review routines as a deliberate response to identified learning gaps, with assessment data guiding both the focus and structure of these reviews. Teachers noted that this approach reinforced key concepts, improved student confidence, and supported greater mastery across strands.
A key outcome of the professional learning support was a deeper understanding of purposeful front-loading as a proactive strategy to set students up for success. Teachers reported that by providing clear, structured support before introducing new concepts, students were better prepared, more engaged, and demonstrated stronger achievement outcomes.
In 2025, the school hosted two CDBB Central Coast professional learning events that further strengthened this work: a two-hour twilight session focused on mid-year data analysis and shared norms of practice, and a full-day, hands-on workshop in Term 3 centred on using data analytics to inform spaced practice, daily review, and the development of agreed assessment and instructional norms for 2026.
Importantly, the professional learning support enabled teaching teams to establish common goals and whole-school expectations. Teachers reported that this collaborative alignment created greater consistency in practice, strengthened shared accountability, and improved their collective capacity to use data meaningfully, plan targeted instruction, and implement strategies that close learning gaps and support improved outcomes for all learners.
6. EA Recommendations for 2026
6.1. Strengthen early and middle-years numeracy foundations
- Continue daily review, explicit modelling and targeted practice.
- Use Pre data to guide catch-up sequences in early terms.
- Maintain My Numeracy usage to reinforce conceptual gaps.
6.2. Strengthen strand and Stage 3 consistency
- Conduct stage-based strand conversations.
- Use moderation to align expectations.
- Target improvement in Statistics & Probability.
- Deepen extension and challenge tasks for Stage 3.
7. How EA Will Support the Next Phase
Essential Assessment is well positioned to strengthen the next phase of Holy Cross’ mathematics journey by providing the precision, tools and instructional clarity needed to respond to the patterns emerging in the annual norm-referenced analysis. With reliable, curriculum-aligned diagnostics, teachers can identify both readiness gaps and extension needs down to the content descriptor level, ensuring that all students — especially high achievers and upper-middle learners — receive targeted, purposeful instruction. The platform’s enabling and extending pathways, including differentiated tasks, personalised practice and My Numeracy/My Literacy progressions, give teachers the flexibility to scaffold students who require additional support while simultaneously stretching those ready for deeper conceptual challenge.
EA’s real-time reporting, ZPD insights and strand-specific data views bring coherence to planning cycles, helping teams focus precisely on areas such as Statistics & Probability or multi-step reasoning, where variability in achievement is emerging. The platform also provides a consistent assessment structure across K–6, supporting leaders with whole-school visibility, moderation conversations and evidence-informed decision making.
Through curriculum-aligned assessments, differentiated next steps, and structured opportunities for both intervention and enrichment, EA enables Holy Cross to consolidate foundational understanding, accelerate growth for high-achieving learners, and build a more coherent and responsive mathematics instructional model for the years ahead.
In 2026, EA will support Holy Cross by:
- Supporting leaders to sequence a balanced mathematics cycle with a linked PL plan.
- Coaching teachers to interpret strand and cohort data with confidence.
This partnership will deepen the school’s assessment culture and strengthen responsiveness across K–6.
Final Insights
Holy Cross has a strong story to tell. The early years show students building firm foundations, with Kindergarten and Year 2 making impressive gains that reflect the consistency of the school’s numeracy routines. Across the school, most students are achieving within or above the expected ranges on annual norm-referenced measures, showing that the core learning program is supporting steady progress for the majority.
However, as students move further through the primary years, the picture becomes more varied. Year 3 holds its ground but shows little movement over the year. Year 4 makes clear progress in Measurement and Space but doesn’t see the same lift in other strands. In Years 5 and 6, growth begins to flatten out — especially for the students who usually sit in the upper-middle and higher bands. Statistics and Probability continues to be a common area where many students need more support.
Therefore, the next stage of improvement lies in tightening a few key areas. Strengthening essential concepts where needed, placing extra focus on Statistics and Probability, and using EA’s enabling and extending pathways — diagnostics, targeted practice and tailored next steps — will help lift progress in the middle and upper years. With these adjustments, the strong start students make in the early years can continue right through to the end of primary school, creating a more consistent learning journey for every student.
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